You have to wonder if anyone’s ever shot 84-65 over the last two days of a U.S. Open Championship?
It happened Sunday at Shinnecock Hills and it was Rickie Fowler pulling off the 19-shot trick.
Fowler was in contention after 36 holes with rounds of 73-69.
Then in the chaos that was Saturday afternoon, Fowler saw his hopes dashed with a brutal 84.
On Sunday, paired with older buddy Phil Mickelson, Fowler proved the final round setup was gettable.
After needling Mickelson about his hockey-stick putting antics at the 13th on Saturday, Fowler went our and made four front nine birdies, turned in 31 then found two more and a bogey coming home for his 65 — best round ever for him at a U.S. Open.
“That’s the golf course I enjoy playing,” Fowler said after his final round. ” Obviously, pin placements were a lot safer. The pins today will definitely allow for the greens to firm up and get fast, and we’ll see how much they dry out. It was definitely more receptive this morning than yesterday, that’s for sure. So I enjoyed it. It was fun. It was a good time to go out with Phil. We kind of had nothing to lose. It was nice to get back to swinging it how I was the first two days. I just had a couple mistakes that compounded yesterday, and it didn’t help that the course was playing the toughest it’s played all week.”
Fowler then complimented the USGA and made a prediction for the afternoon players:
“Yeah, I think they did a good job with setup today. I don’t think they’ll have any issues.”
There were no issues, outside of the final round pressure that comes at a U.S. Open.
As for his take on Mickelson’s Saturday slap-fest:
“He joked about it right as we went down the 1st hole. So we had a good time. And then he made a good par save on 13, and it looked like he won the Masters. He didn’t jump, but he had a little celebration there,” Fowler said.
“Obviously, Phil’s great at enjoying playing golf, having fun out there, interacting with the fans. I feel like we both had a good time out there just enjoying a fun round of golf. We both had it going. Unfortunately, Phil didn’t finish it off the way he wanted to. I was trying to clip Jimmy’s record here, since I’m staying with him this week, to have bragging rights on him, but we’ll have to wait for another time.”
Fowler’s 65 got him back to 11-over par, tied for 20th.
As for Mickelson, he shot 69, shot 16-over and went yet another year without winning the U.S. Open.
