The last time the US Open was a US Open as the canons dictate, Yuka Saso, a Filipina of Japanese origin, surprised the world by winning the tournament at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. She won with a meagre -4. Perhaps for this reason, we should not be too surprised that today, Thursday, she is the first leader in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, after one of the toughest US Open days on record. The average number of strokes has been over five over par, the highest since the US Open at Pinehurst 2014 won by Michelle Wie where the girls played the same course as the boys a week later.
Only four golfers have managed to beat the course on the opening day of the tournament, while almost twenty have made 80 or more strokes. Yuka Saso (-2) has signed a work of art. Making 68 strokes, with five birdies, in the conditions experienced this Thursday in Lancaster is almost a feat. She has played golf very well, has taken many streets and has been almost always on green. In any case, the big difference has been with the putter. They have inflated to put putts between three and six meters, both for birdie and for par. Only in this way can her result of -2, almost extraterrestrial, be explained. And that she finished with a bogey on hole 18 with a three-putt from the collar.
Saso has a one-stroke lead over Andrea Lee, Wichanee Meechai and the French amateur Adela Cernousek. Two strokes behind, with a par result, are Alexandra Forsterling, Sei Young Kim, Megan Schofill, Chisato Iwai, the 15-year-old golfer Asterisk Talley, Yuri Yoshida, Jenny Shin, Minjee Lee, Catherine Park and Pia Babnik.
In the midst of this scenario of weeping and gnashing of teeth, Carlota Ciganda (+2) has done much more than save the furniture. She has resisted like a lioness in very complicated conditions and also did it without the collaboration of the driver. She has strictly hunted only four streets, a misery in a rough as hard as Lancaster, and could barely add two more that ended in the semi-rough. In any case, she has made 72 strokes playing practically every stroke from out of position.
The Navarrese has compensated with an excellent day on the greens, especially reflected at the end of her round, with two very good par putts of about four and three meters on holes 6 and 9, since she started at 10. Carlota has made two birdies and four bogeys, has resisted the onslaughts of Lancaster and is fully involved in the fight. If today has been the bad round from the tee, which we could think so, we can still expect great things from Ciganda this week.
To the dog’s day of Nelly Korda (+10) or Lydia Ko (+10), we must add in the afternoon Brooke Henderson (+10), Rose Zhang (+9), Lexi Thompson (+8), Georgia Hall (+7) or Hannah Green (+6). It has been a slaughter, but the main target has been the best golfers in the world. How beautiful is the US Open when the USGA prepares the courses in this way…
