– Ludvig Aberg scored 70 strokes last year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It was his first time at Bay Hill. This year he scored 65 on his first visit to Pebble Beach, 68 at Riviera, 67 at the TPC Sawgrass, 73 at Augusta, 66 at Hilton Head, 72 at Valhalla, 68 at Muirfield and this Thursday he scored 66 at Pinehurst. Always the first time. His debut in these coliseums. The average strokes of Aberg in his debuts at all these mythical scenarios is 68.33. Simply crazy. Is there really no human way for this guy’s legs to tremble at some point? It doesn’t seem so. Supernatural. Six of the nine rounds have been below 70 strokes. To be flabbergasted.
– By the way, it is the seventh time in the history of the US Open that a player scores 66 strokes or better in his debut in the tournament. Aberg joins the club with Matthew Wolff, Xander Schauffele, Andrew Landry, TC Chen, Jim Thorpe and Lee Mackey Jr.
– The genius of the USGA. Only thus can it be qualified how they have copied the first round of 2014 and 2024. Ten years have passed, but as if it were yesterday. In 2014, 15 players finished under par on Thursday and the average strokes were 73.231. This year 15 players have finished under par and the average strokes have been 72.262. Almost like The X-Files. Mulder and Scully, warm up, you’re on.
– Continuing with the average strokes. This Thursday’s at Pinehurst is the highest since 2018 at Shinnecock Hills. In New York, the average went above 76 strokes… Thank you, USGA, for recovering your identity.
– McIlroy and Cantlay, what a pair of leaders. Two top 10 in the world. In other sports, maybe, but in golf it’s not so normal. Pinehurst takes pride. The last time two top 10 in the world shared the lead after the first round of a US Open was in 2015. On that occasion, the protagonists were named Dustin Johnson and Henrik Stenson.
– Sergio García signed one of the best rounds of his life from tee to green. He said it himself. Coming from him, for trajectory and demand, those are big words. Basically, it translates into him doing what he wanted and when he wanted with the ball.
– Tyrrell Hatton is having a great time at Pinehurst. He likes the course and loves the preparation, but above all he enjoys like a child watching the rest of the players on the edge of madness. “It’s great that they feel for once what happens to me almost every week,” joked the Englishman.
– The hardest hole of the first day of the US Open was the 6th, par 3, just like in 2014. And Seamus Power managed to chain three consecutive birdies. No one else did. Last year, in the first round in Los Angeles, up to three different players linked streaks of three consecutive birdies. More Pinehurst and less LACC.
– The key to Matthieu Pavon‘s great start of the round was on the greens. The cotton doesn’t lie. He has taken four strokes from the tournament average. The most striking thing is that in Valhalla he was last in this area, giving up almost eight strokes. This is called learning the lesson. And fast.
– Brooks Koepka declined to attend to the media at the end of his round. He made a par score, after finishing with three bogeys on the second nine holes. He did please Eamon Lynch, a Golfweek journalist, via phone. He pointed out that he didn’t want to attend to the media because they always ask the same boring questions and are not creative at all. For Brooks a creative question would have been how the new Bermuda grass on the greens makes the course difficult. Bingo, Brooks. It’s only been asked about 40 times this week. Anyway, if he hadn’t finished with the three bogeys, the potential questions probably wouldn’t have seemed so boring to him.
