Bryson DeChambeau shot a three-under-par 67 to seize control of the US Open on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in the sandhills of North Carolina, breaking away from a tightly packed group of leaders at the top of the leaderboard with a thrilling stretch of golf that teeming crowds at Pinehurst No. 2 under his spell.
Four years after taking six strokes on the Winged Foot court to win the US National Championship for the first time, the 30-year-old American finds himself 18 holes away from a second US Open trophy behind a redesigned game that fits at his recreated personality.
DeChambeau, one of only a dozen players from the rebellious LIV Golf Series in the field, will go into Sunday’s final round in the final group with a three-shot lead over Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay and Matthieu Pavon and five ahead of Hideki Matuyama and Ludvig Åberg, the overnight leader undone by a triple-bogey on the back nine.
DeChambeau came on fire early in the round on Saturday with a string of five birdies in a 10-hole stretch that left him eight under par and four shots out of the field. His 54-hole lead would have been even greater had it not been for a double bogey on the 16th, a sobering reminder of the dangers lurking around every corner of this brutally difficult Donald Ross circuit. So far, the Californian has made good on his promise to trade his familiar bomb-and-gouge style for a more patient golf game that he has described as “boring” all week.
He has also embraced the role of entertainer, playing to the boisterous crowd that followed his round from the first to the 18th hole on Saturday, erupting into a spontaneous “USA!” chants throughout the afternoon. It’s 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, for myself and for my family,” he said. “When I think back three years ago, the landscape looked very different. I tried to show everyone who I was. I didn’t do it the right way and could have done a lot of things better. I am fortunate to have a great team around me that helps me move in the right direction with the content we produce, social media and just a great outlook on life.”
McIlroy’s bid for a drought-ravaged fifth major title got off to a flying start with a birdie on three, but he lost a stroke with a three-putt bogey on the sixth hole and missed a couple of chances to get it back. He added birdies at the ninth, 12th and 14th and made a pair of heartbreaking par saves at the 13th and 16th, but he will surely rue the missed opportunities to apply scoreboard pressure with bogeys on two of the final four holes.
“I love the test that Pinehurst presents, and you have to focus and concentrate on every single shot,” McIlroy said. “This is what a US Open should be.”
What has been a breakout season for the late-blooming Pavon could become a lot more attractive in the next 24 hours. The 31-year-old from Toulouse briefly held the lead after a birdie at the seventh and made a sensational two-putt for par from over 60 feet at the ninth before falling to the four-way tie at the top of the leaderboard. . Five months after becoming the first French player since World War II to win a PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines, Pavon is on the brink of an even bigger prize.
He will start three steps off DeChambeau’s pace, along with Cantlay, who missed several birdie opportunities but stayed in the hunt on the 17th with five long par-saving putts and 20-footer for birdie.
Several of the overnight contenders wilted early. Belgian Thomas Detry made four bogeys and a double on the front nine, quickly dropping him from the shortlist of contenders. Xander Schauffle, the newly crowned American PGA champion who started the day at one under, opened with back-to-back bogeys coming from the red.
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But the greatest of them all was Åberg, the 24-year-old Swede who became the first US Open debutant in almost four decades to hold even a share of the 36-hole lead – Taiwan’s TC Chen in 1985 was the last – and bid to become the first player to lift the trophy on their first attempt since Francis Ouimet at Brookline in 1913.
He went two shots ahead of the pack at six under on the par-four third hole with a sensational 30-foot birdie putt that hung on the front lip before dropping in, but he couldn’t hold off DeChambeau’s charge before he tumbled down. leaderboard with triple bogey on the 13th hole that sent him to a 73 and left him five shots behind, tied with Hideki Matsuyama (70)
It’s been a taxing few days for everyone on a 7,540-yard course, which offers a variation on the familiar US Open setups with sand, natural hardpan, pine straw and wire grass around the fairways instead of the more familiar thick grass. After a second straight day of extreme weather warnings with temperatures approaching 38 degrees, even the appearance of the track itself has changed from verdant green to championship brown.
After a battle to make the number, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler ended a career-long streak of 26 holes without a birdie on Saturday when he picked up a shot on the eighth hole, and then another on the 11th, but remained 10 shots of the leadership.
“Another frustrating day,” Scheffler said. “I just didn’t make enough birdies to stay in the tournament. I think I only had four birdies this week and I’m not going to be able to do that, the lead is currently five under.
“The game of golf can be a mental torture chamber at times, especially the US Open.”