MAMARONECK, NEW YORK | Is it possible, I asked Bryson DeChambeau, for a player to impose his will on a U.S. Open golf course, even one as increasingly unforgiving as Winged Foot’s West Course?
“That’s one for the gods,” DeChambeau said, a few minutes after finishing his second-round 68 with an eagle at the par-5 ninth hole set up by a 380-yard drive that offered a barrel-chested validation of his particular style of strongman golf.
Gods or not, Saturday and Sunday at Winged Foot will answer the question now that DeChambeau has played himself toward the top of the U.S. Open leaderboard after a Friday when a fresh breeze brought more than an autumn chill to this privileged hamlet north of New York City.
For anyone who worried that this U.S. Open was lacking bite, including the Winged Foot membership which was said to be bothered by the low first-round scoring, that notion vanished like free cookies.
“It’s a proper U.S. Open,” said Louis Oosthuizen shortly after finishing bogey-bogey-double bogey after getting to 3-under par ...
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