When Matthew Wolff was born, Tiger Woods already owned 4 majors. He wasn’t even sufficiently old to drive when Rory McIlroy gained his most up-to-date main. He’s enjoying in solely his second main ever, after final month’s PGA Championship.
Matthew Wolff is younger, is what we’re saying. And the 21-year-old is at the moment main the U.S. Open by two strokes heading into Sunday.
This doesn’t come as a shock to those that regulate golf exterior the majors. Wolff’s a superb expertise with a tree-chopping stroke that’s more healthy for a house run derby than a golf course. He’s a part of the Oklahoma State golf cartel that features Rickie Fowler, Hunter Mahan, Alex Noren and Viktor Hovland. He turned professional in June 2019, and took a full two weeks to win his first PGA Tour occasion.
Wolff did a spectacular job of conserving his head whereas the remainder of the sphere was shedding theirs on Saturday, browsing via a swirling New York wind and swooping Winged Foot greens to card a 65, matching Justin Thomas’ Thursday card for the bottom rating ever recorded throughout a U.S. Open on the course. He solely hit two fairways all day, however nonetheless managed to get better sufficient to place himself in place gap after gap.
A U.S. Open isn’t speculated to be simple, and Winged Foot as soon as once more reminded the sport’s finest who’s in cost. Matthew Wolff ’s Saturday whole of -5 left him only a single stroke forward of Patrick Reed’s main whole on Friday evening, and even with Justin Thomas’ on Thursday. By the point Saturday’s work was executed, solely three gamers had been below par for the event, down from 21 on Thursday.
“It is simply one other day on the U.S. Open,” Xander Schauffele mentioned. “Form of beats the crap out of you and sort of get better tonight and have dinner and snigger about it, after which try to do it once more tomorrow.”
It didn’t take lengthy for the day’s ultimate pairing, Reed and Bryson DeChambeau, to slip into the tooth of Winged Foot. DeChambeau bogeyed his first two holes to drop two strokes off the lead. Reed, in the meantime, held a short three-stroke lead on the sphere earlier than sliding again to the pack.
Additionally proper there: Louis Oosthuizen, who’s managed a runner-up end in each single main however solely gained one. He sits at -1, the one different participant in addition to DeChambeau and Matthew Wolff to complete the day below par for the event. Shut by at even par: three gamers with pure strokes and managed video games searching for their first main in Harris English, Schauffele and Hideki Matsuyama.
And when you’re on the lookout for a little bit of star energy: none apart from McIlroy his personal self lurks at +1. McIlroy has struggled with the stress on him on main Sundays, however he’ll go off within the fourth-to-last group with a bit much less stress than in a ultimate pairing.
