Bryson DeChambeau shot a three-under-par 67 to seize control of the US Open on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in the North Carolina sand hills, breaking free of a tightly packed cluster of leaders atop the leaderboard with a blistering stretch of golf that held the teeming crowds at Pinehurst No 2 in his thrall.
Four years after lapping the Winged Foot field by six strokes to win America’s national championship for the first time, the 30-year-old American has found himself 18 holes from a second US Open trophy behind a reimagined game to match his remade personality.
One of only a dozen players from the rebel LIV Golf Series in the field, DeChambeau will go off in the last group in Sunday’s final round with a three-shot lead over Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay and Matthieu Pavon and five clear of Hideki Matsuyama and Ludvig Åberg, the overnight leader who was undone by a triple-bogey on the back nine.
DeChambeau caught fire early in Saturday’s round with a series of five birdies in a 10-hole stretch to go eight under par and four shots clear of the field. His 54-hole lead might have been even wider if not for a double-bogey on the 16th, a sobering reminder of the perils lurking on every corner of this brutally difficult Donald Ross track. So far the Californian has made good on a pledge to trade his familiar bomb-and-gouge style for a more patient golf he has described as “boring” all week long.
He has also embraced the role of entertainer, playing to the rollicking crowds that followed his round on Saturday from the 1st to the 18th holes and erupted into spontaneous “U-S-A!” chants throughout the afternoon. It is a change in mindset that he has attributed in part to his work building a YouTube channel that has approached 700,000 subscribers.
“It just gives me a spike in my adrenaline and allows me to focus more on delivering for the fans and for myself and for my family,” he said. “Just thinking back three years ago, the landscape was a lot different. I tried to show everybody who I was. I didn’t do it the right way and could have done a lot of things better. I’m lucky enough to have a great team around me to help me move in the right direction with the content that we’re producing, social media, and then also just a great perspective on life.”
McIlroy’s bid for a drought-busting fifth major title got off to a flying start with a birdie on the 3rd, but he lost a stroke with a three-putt bogey on the 6th and missed a couple of chances to get it back. He added birdies on the 9th, 12th and 14th and made a couple of heart-stopping par saves on the 13th and 16th, but will surely rue the missed opportunities to apply scoreboard pressure with bogeys on two of the last four holes.
“I love the test that Pinehurst is presenting, and you’ve got to focus and concentrate on every single shot out there,” McIlroy said. “It’s what a US Open should be like.”
What has been a breakout season for the late-blooming Pavon could become a lot more compelling over the next 24-hours. The 31-year-old from Toulouse briefly held sole possession of the lead after a birdie on the 7th and made a sensational two-putt for par from more than 60 feet on the 9th before falling back into the four-way tie atop the leaderboard. Five months after becoming the first French player since the second world war to win a PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines, Pavon finds himself on the brink of an even bigger prize.
He will go off at three off DeChambeau’s pace along with Cantlay, who missed several birdie chances but stayed in the hunt with five lengthy par-saving putts and 20-footer for birdie on the 17th.
Several of the overnight contenders wilted early. Belgium’s Thomas Detry made four bogeys and a double on the front nine to quickly drop from the shortlist of contenders. Xander Schauffle, the newly minted US PGA champion who started the day at one under, opened with back-to-back bogeys to drop from the red.
But the biggest of them all was Åberg, the 24-year-old Swede who was the first US Open debutant in nearly four decades to hold even a share of the 36-hole lead – Taiwan’s TC Chen in 1985 was the last – and bidding to become the first player to lift the trophy on their first attempt since Francis Ouimet at Brookline in 1913.
He went two shots clear of the pack at six under on the par-four 3rd hole with a sensational birdie putt from nearly 30 feet that hung on the front lip before dropping in, but couldn’t hold off DeChambeau’s charge before tumbling down the leaderboard with triple bogey on the 13th hole that sent him to a 73 and left him five shots back along with Hideki Matsuyama (70)
It’s been a taxing few days for everybody on 7,540-yard course, which offers a twist on the familiar US Open setups with sand, natural hardpan, pine straw and wire grass surrounding the fairways instead of the more familiar thick turf. After a second straight day of extreme weather advisories with temperatures approaching 38C (100F), even the appearance of the course itself has changed from verdant green to championship brown.
After battling to make the cut on the number, the world No 1, Scottie Scheffler, ended a career record streak of 26 holes without a birdie on Saturday when he picked up a shot on the 8th hole, then another on the 11th, but remained 10 shots off the lead.
“Another frustrating day,” Scheffler said. “I just didn’t make enough birdies to stay in the tournament, I think I only had four birdies for the week which is not going to get it done, the lead is currently at five under.
“The game of golf is a mental torture chamber at times, especially the US Open.”
