Tour Confidential: The largest disappointments on the U.S. Open's midway level

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The reduce has been made, and 36 holes stay for the 74 gamers who get to stay round to tee it up at Pinehurst No. 2 this weekend. What’s been the largest disappointment on the halfway level of the U.S. Open?

Zephyr Melton, assistant editor (@zephyrmelton): I’ll go together with Scottie Scheffler’s second-round 74 that featured zero (!) birdies. His one-over begin to the event appeared as if it could be his one “dangerous” spherical, however Friday was even worse. Pinehurst No. 2 appeared like a course that will completely match Scheffler’s sport, however to this point he’s appeared out of his consolation zone. It’ll be attention-grabbing to see if he can put collectively a little bit run taking part in early tomorrow. 

Josh Sens, senior author(@JoshSens): You imply, except for the second when my U.S. Open pool decide Sepp Straka made a rattle-the-flagstick triple bogey? Brooks Koepka could be polarizing, however he certain is compelling when he’s taking part in properly in a serious. When he birdied the 18th (his ninth gap of the day) to get again to even, I used to be anticipating we’d see stone-cold-killer Brooks the remainder of the best way. It was deflating to look at him stumble in to make the reduce on the quantity.

Ryan Barath, senior editor, tools (@RDSBarath): You may name this a cop-out, however my largest disappointment is with most of the golfers presently sitting at 5 over par. We’ve received Tommy Fleetwood, Matt Fitzpatrick, Cameron Younger, Brooks Koepka, and naturally Scottie Scheffler. Add in that Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa are solely sitting one shot higher at 4 over and that’s loads of large names who gained’t be aggressive come Sunday afternoon (until they pull off a miracle tomorrow). Look, the leaderboard is nice, and I’m not bagging on the gamers on the prime, however sooner or later, these gamers have to step up extra repeatedly at these large occasions.

Jessica Marksbury, senior editor (@Jess_Marksbury): I’ll take the Big Cat. There was a time, not way back, once we speculated that Pinehurst could also be one in every of Tiger’s final greatest probabilities to bag a serious championship at a course that’s not Augusta Nationwide. Sadly, it’s clear that, whereas we all know Tiger has the photographs, he merely isn’t scoring when he must with a purpose to be an element on the leaderboard. A significant championship weekend with out him is all the time a bummer.

Dylan Dethier, senior editor (@dylan_dethier): Jeez, I’m with you Jess! The bizarre factor is that Tiger appeared … type of good? There have been just a few sloppy errors that price him the reduce, however there have been additionally just a few irons that would have been flagged however kicked to robust positions as a substitute. When his appearances are this scarce it’s a bummer to really feel disadvantaged of a full week of Tiger. However I’ll add Viktor Hovland to the combo. He got here in with some momentum popping out of the PGA Championship however performed so poorly on Thursday — 78 — {that a} second-round 68 nonetheless wasn’t sufficient to get him to the weekend, by no means thoughts rivalry.

Jack Hirsh, assistant editor (@JR_HIRSHey): Justin Thomas. I imply how for much longer can this go on for? Each time we really feel like JT has some momentum the previous few years, it will get zapped with an embarrassing missed reduce at a serious. Sure, Spieth’s downturn lasted longer than J.T.’s, to this point, however Spieth wasn’t flirting with 80 at seemingly each main. Thomas was 152nd in SG: Method this week, dropping three photographs to a subject that included a high school teacher. Sure, a highschool instructor hit irons higher than Justin freaking Thomas this week. That’s simply wild to consider.