US Open: Rickie Fowler, Wyndham Clark lead with Major champs in hot pursuit

Los Angeles, June 18

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Rickie Fowler only had three and a half feet left for par on what should have been his last shot on Saturday in a US Open round filled with far bigger moments. At stake was his first 54-hole lead in a Major. Shockingly, he missed and slipped into a tie with Wyndham Clark.

Fowler wasn’t the least bit bothered. He knows what to expect by looking ahead at a final round on a Los Angeles Country Club course getting tougher by the minute, and by looking behind at some of the players chasing them Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Dustin Johnson. “It would be nice for that one to go in,” Fowler said. “Really doesn’t matter having the lead, being one back, two back you’re going to have to play good golf.”

Fowler brought the buzz to the US Open with a 70-foot birdie putt only to lose the lead with a three-putt bogey on the 18th hole, which turned into a two-shot lead and a tie for the lead when Clark boldly took on a tight pin he could barely see for a closing birdie.

Clark’s birdie put him and not McIlroy in the final group. And he knew it. “I wanted to be in the final group. Every shot matters out here,” Clark said.

For all the drama over the final hour big putts, Scheffler’s eagle-birdie finish, Xander Schauffele going from a crash to a recovery to another crash McIlroy played a steady hand with one birdie and one bogey over his final 14 holes. He had a 69 that left him one shot behind, poised to end nine long years without a Major. “It’s nice to be in the hunt,” McIlroy said. AP