After three rounds it’s very much the Wide Open

LOS ANGELES — So players such as Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth missed the cut, while someone named Wyndham Clark is chasing the win.

What do you expect? It’s the U.S. Open isn’t it? Less a golf tournament than an exercise in confusion.

It doesn’t matter if the Open’s held in Massachusetts as last year or right here on the other side of the country, California as this year. The Open is utterly unpredictable.

That is, unless Tiger Woods is playing, and because of his physical problems that couldn’t be. 

The Open is, well, very open, chockablock full of great golfers and great stories and just enough double bogies to keep us both attentive and bewildered. The late Dan Jenkins called the Open a movable feast, shifting from course to course with historic venues as Merion and Pebble Beach to this year for the first time, the ultra-private Los Angeles Country Club.

LACC is tucked amongst modern high rises and old-line pretention where L.A. and Beverly Hills meet. No one was quite sure what to expect, especially the pros, and through the third round Saturday they’ve had everything — including on opening day 1 record low rounds of 62.

One of those was by the man they say is the best golfer never to win a major, Rickie Fowler.

After 54 holes, Fowler, up and down, in and out, and showing plenty of courage and almost enough touch, 3-putted the final hole to end up with an even par 70 and tied for first with Clark at 200 10-under. One shot back was Rory McIlroy, who had a 69. 

Wide open, indeed.

The sun was setting on what was close to the longest day of the year, but the round still was going — just as NBC, which televises the tournament.

TV networks are less concerned with competition than ratings, and a dusk finish along the Pacific Coast means a night-time finish back in the population centers of New York, Philly and Boston.

Bryson DeChambeau, who won the Open in 2020, had a 2-under 68.

“It’s just diabolical,” DeChambeau said of the course. “It’s more links-sy, like Britain, that’s the best way I can describe it. I feel like I’m playing a British Open right now.”

That comes in a month. Right now it’s the U.S. Open, the wide open. But isn’t it always.

That’s why it’s so difficult to win and so very important, no matter where it’s held.