Tiger Woods (The Associated Press)
They were not the survivors of the U.S. Open. They were the leaders.
And it’s no coincidence that all of them have been tested in the majors, none more often than Woods, who survived a patch of bogeys early in his round for an even-par 70 that took him another round closer to a 15th major title.
“I know that it takes a bit out of us, but so be it,” Woods said. “Much rather be there than missing cuts or just making the cut. So it’s a wonderful place to be with a chance to win your nation’s open.”
Just when this U.S. Open was starting to look like child’s play, a trio of major champions took it back.
Furyk rolled in a 40-foot birdie putt from off the third green in the morning for a 69. Woods and Toms, who showed a steady hand with the putter for a 70, joined him in the afternoon when the conditions were fiery and emotions were frayed.
They were the only players to beat par for 36 holes at 1-under 139.
And they restored some sanity to a major that for a brief and stunning moment had been taken over by a 17-year-old who only two weeks ago didn’t even win his state high school championship. Beau Hossler went 11 holes without making a bogey, and took the outright lead on one of the toughest holes at Olympic. He got lost in the thick rough and trees on the brutal front nine, dropping five shots in eight holes for a 73 that left him four shots behind.
That wasn’t the only surprise.
Defending champion Rory McIlroy missed the cut for the fourth time in his last five tournaments. He set a U.S. Open record last year at Congressional with a 131 through 36 holes. He was 19 shots worse at Olympic, with a 73 giving him a two-day score of 150.
“It wasn’t the way I wanted to play,” he said.
Dalton native Blake Adams, who has family ties in Rome, shot an even par Friday and is three shots off the lead.
Also leaving San Francisco far earlier than anyone expected were Luke Donald, the world’s No. 1 player, Masters champion Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson, coming off a win last week at the St. Jude Classic.
It doesn’t take much at this U.S. Open to swallow up even the best players.
When the last group trudged up the hill toward the stately clubhouse at Olympic, the experience at the top of the leaderboard was impossible to ignore.
“Whoever wins this golf tournament is going to be a great champion, somebody that’s probably won events before, that can handle the emotions and can handle the adversity in a U.S. Open, and somebody with experience,” Toms said. “At least that’s what I think. You never know. Strange things can happen, but I would think that you would see a lot of that on the leaderboard come late Sunday.”
It starts with Woods, who is coming off his second win of the year at the Memorial and looks as strong as ever. Hitting shots both directions, mainly with irons off the tees, he overcame three straight bogeys on his front nine, two of those shots not far off from being easy birdie chances.
His only regret was not taking advantage of having a wedge in his hand on the last three holes, all birdie opportunities that became pars.
When he regained a share of the lead with Furyk on the 13th with a 4-foot birdie putt, Woods was coming up on a series of holes that allowed players to at least think of making birdie. In a greenside bunker in two on the par-5 16th — shortened to 609 yards Friday — Woods blasted out weakly and missed a 12-foot putt. With a mid-iron in his hand in the fairway on the par-5 17th, he went over the green and down a deep slope. Despite a superb pitch to 8 feet, he missed the putt.
And with a wedge from the fairway on the 18th, he came up well short and into a bunker, having to settle for par.
Pars aren’t bad, though.
“This tournament, you’re just plodding along,” Woods said. “This is a different tournament. You have to stay patient, stay present, and you’re just playing for a lot of pars. This is not a tournament where we have to make a bunch of birdies.”
Graeme McDowell, the U.S. Open champion two years ago down the coast at Pebble Beach, dropped three shots on his last four holes for a 72.
Even so, he was very much in the hunt two shots behind at 141, along with recent LSU alum John Peterson (70), Nicolas Colsaerts of Belgium (69) and Michael Thompson, the first-round leader who followed his opening 66 with a 75.
“It’s just tough to have fun out there,” McDowell said.
Woods had won eight straight times when he had at least a share of the lead going into the weekend at the majors, a streak that ended at the 2009 PGA Championship when Y.E. Yang chased him down from four shots back. Woods hasn’t seriously contended in the final hour of a major since then.
And a stern test waits on the weekend. Asked for a winning score, McDowell deferred to the USGA.
“They can have whatever they want,” McDowell said. “If they want 5 over to win, 10 over to win it ... they can hide these pins away. I would have to imagine around level par.”
Woods, who played the difficult six-hole opening stretch at 1 under in the opening round, wasn’t so fortunate the second time around.
He brilliantly bounced his tee shot onto the green at the par-3 third to 5 feet for birdie, and the outright lead at 2 under, and he appeared to have everything under control. That didn’t last, though.
He pushed his approach into a bunker on the fifth and took bogey. He got a miserable break on the next hole when his second shot was suspended in the thick collar of the bunker, forcing him to grip his wedge on the steel shaft to play his shot, which went through the green for another bogey. And on the short par-4 seventh, which can be reached from the tee, he three-putted from 8 feet for a third straight bogey.
On the other side of the course, the cheers of disbelief were for Hossler.
The kid rolled in a 6-foot birdie putt on the 520-yard first hole, putting him alone in the lead at 2 under.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “I kind of lost it coming in.”
It’s wasn’t the pressure. It wasn’t the size of his audience perched along the hills. It wasn’t the sight of his name listed over three major champions.
It was The Olympic Club.
Hossler dropped a shot on the next hole, though the real trouble came when he pulled his tee shot on the fourth into the hay and made double bogey. Then, he hit into a bunker on the adjacent hole for another bogey, lost another shot on the sixth and only slowed the damage with a chip-in behind the seventh green for birdie.
He still gets to sleep in on Saturday with his late tee time, and what 17-year-old doesn’t like that?
U.S. OPEN SCORES:
Friday
Second Round
a-denotes amateur
Jim Furyk 70-69 — 139
Tiger Woods 69-70 — 139
David Toms 69-70 — 139
John Peterson 71-70 — 141
Nicholas Colsaerts 72-69 — 141
Graeme McDowell 69-72 — 141
Michael Thompson 66-75 — 141
Blake Adams 72-70 — 142
Aaron Watkins 72-71 — 143
Hunter Mahan 72-71 — 143
Matt Kuchar 70-73 — 143
Jason Dufner 72-71 — 143
a-Beau Hossler 70-73 — 143
Raphael Jacquelin 72-71 — 143
Charl Schwartzel 73-70 — 143
K.J. Choi 73-70 — 143
Fredrik Jacobson 72-71 — 143
Charlie Wi 74-70 — 144
Sergio Garcia 73-71 — 144
Nick Watney 69-75 — 144
Justin Rose 69-75 — 144
Ernie Els 75-69 — 144
Steve Stricker 76-68 — 144
Jae-Bum Park 70-74 — 144
Padraig Harrington 74-70 — 144
Alistair Presnell 70-74 — 144
Michael Allen 71-73 — 144
a-Hunter Hamrick 77-67 — 144
John Senden 72-73 — 145
Lee Westwood 73-72 — 145
Martin Kaymer 74-71 — 145
Ian Poulter 70-75 — 145
Matteo Manassero 76-69 — 145
Kevin Chappell 74-71 — 145
Jason Bohn 70-75 — 145
Branden Grace 71-74 — 145
Kevin Na 74-71 — 145
Retief Goosen 75-70 — 145
Webb Simpson 72-73 — 145
Robert Karlsson 70-75 — 145
Marc Warren 73-72 — 145
Morgan Hoffmann 72-74 — 146
Jason Day 75-71 — 146
Darron Stiles 75-71 — 146
Scott Langley 76-70 — 146
Jonathan Byrd 71-75 — 146
Hiroyuki Fujita 75-71 — 146
Adam Scott 76-70 — 146
Keegan Bradley 73-73 — 146
K.T. Kim 74-72 — 146
Alex Cejka 78-69 — 147
Phil Mickelson 76-71 — 147
Stephen Ames 74-73 — 147
Davis Love III 73-74 — 147
Zach Johnson 77-70 — 147
Bob Estes 74-73 — 147
Francesco Molinari 71-76 — 147
Rod Pampling 74-73 — 147
Simon Dyson 74-74 — 148
Jeff Curl 73-75 — 148
Nicholas Thompson 74-74 — 148
Casey Wittenberg 71-77 — 148
a-Jordan Spieth 74-74 — 148
Angel Cabrera 72-76 — 148
Rickie Fowler 72-76 — 148
Jesse Mueller 75-73 — 148
Steve LeBrun 73-75 — 148
Matthew Baldwin 74-74 — 148
Joe Ogilvie 73-75 — 148
a-Patrick Cantlay 76-72 — 148
Bo Van Pelt 78-70 — 148
Kevin Streelman 76-72 — 148
Failed to qualify
Casey Martin 74-75 — 149
Joe Durant 78-71 — 149
Bill Haas 76-73 — 149
Lucas Glover 76-73 — 149
Martin Laird 77-72 — 149
Louis Oosthuizen 77-72 — 149
Ryo Ishikawa 71-78 — 149
Dustin Johnson 75-74 — 149
Brian Harman 77-72 — 149
Mikko Ilonen 75-74 — 149
Lee Slattery 79-70 — 149
Justin Hicks 75-74 — 149
a-Alberto Sanchez 72-77 — 149
Roberto Castro 75-74 — 149
Thomas Bjorn 78-71 — 149
Bubba Watson 78-71 — 149
Gregory Bourdy 74-75 — 149
Mark Wilson 76-73 — 149
Charles Howell III 72-77 — 149
Carl Pettersson 75-74 — 149
Y.E. Yang 74-75 — 149
Robert Garrigus 72-77 — 149
Jim Herman 78-72 — 150
Alvaro Quiros 75-75 — 150
Chez Reavie 80-70 — 150
Rory McIlroy 77-73 — 150
Geoff Ogilvy 76-74 — 150
Ben Crane 77-73 — 150
Martin Flores 71-79 — 150
Scott Piercy 75-75 — 150
Kyle Stanley 73-77 — 150
Alexander Noren 75-75 — 150
Edward Laor 76-74 — 150
Rafael Cabrera-Bello 74-76 — 150
Gary Woodland 74-77 — 151
Peter Lawrie 74-77 — 151
Luke Donald 79-72 — 151
Olin Browne 77-74 — 151
Anders Hansen 72-79 — 151
Spencer Levin 74-77 — 151
Brendan Jones 76-75 — 151
Tim Herron 74-77 — 151
Tim Clark 77-74 — 151
Toru Taniguchi 78-73 — 151
Sang-Moon Bae 77-74 — 151
Stewart Cink 77-75 — 152
D.A. Points 72-80 — 152
Paul Claxton 75-77 — 152
Anthony Summers 76-76 — 152
Bill Lunde 81-72 — 153
David Mathis 78-75 — 153
Michael Campbell 79-74 — 153
Tadahiro Takayama 77-76 — 153
James Hahn 73-80 — 153
Tommy Biershenk 74-79 — 153
Matt Bettencourt 76-77 — 153
Colt Knost 75-78 — 153
George Coetzee 78-75 — 153
Vijay Singh 75-78 — 153
Robert Rock 75-78 — 153
Peter Hanson 78-75 — 153
a-Cameron Wilson 77-77 — 154
Aaron Baddeley 75-79 — 154
a-Brooks Koepka 77-77 — 154
Kyle Thompson 82-72 — 154
Trevor Immelman 80-75 — 155
Hunter Haas 81-74 — 155
Brice Garnett 78-77 — 155
Brian Gaffney 77-78 — 155
Shane Bertsch 78-77 — 155
a-Andy Zhang 79-77 — 156
Gonzalo F.-Castano 80-76 — 156
Dong-Hwan Lee 77-79 — 156
Tim Weinhart 78-79 — 157
Miguel A. Jimenez 81-77 — 158
a-Nick Sherwood 78-80 — 158
Mark McCormick 82-77 — 159
Scott Smith 78-81 — 159
Soren Kjeldsen 85-75 — 160
Dennis Miller 80-82 — 162
Steve Marino 84-78 — 162
Cole Howard 80-84 — 164
Brian Rowell 86-82 — 168
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