Fascinating golf yesterday from Mike Weir. If a couple of putts had fallen that burned the lip on his front nine — he could have broke the US Open scoring record. If it makes the short one while making a double-bogey on the back nine, he would have tied the record. Regardless, a 64 was pretty impressive, even if he stumbled a bit to an even-par second round.
Lorne Rubenstein details Weir’s round here:
Weir had played extraordinary golf in the first round. I caught up to him on the 16th hole, his seventh of the day. He stiffed an iron approach within four feet of the hole. The putt went down, and then Weir hit a rescue club with the loft of a 3-iron to eight feet on the par-three 17th. The birdie putt stayed out, as did a shorter one on the 18th green. Still, Weir had shot 31 to start the U.S. Open.
What are Weir’s chances? I’d say pretty good to at least be hanging around the lead on Sunday. He has a fine US Open record, and tends to play well on tough courses. His chances are improved by the fact that many of his competitors will likely play their second round in the rain this afternoon — leading to 36 holes tomorrow. Still, there are plenty of great golfers lurking.
One who is in the thick of things after shooting a terrific 5-under 65 is Abbotsford, BC native Nick Taylor. Yesterday the telecast of the pegged Taylor as being from all over — including Winnipeg at least once. The Golf Channel didn’t even list him as among the amateurs playing when it did an overview of the tournament on Wednesday. He’s only the #2 amateur in the world.
Anyway, there’s not a lot of Taylor’s round out there — yet. But he’s on the leaderboard, and has made the cut. Impressive indeed.
Taylor is now the #1 ranked amateur; Hill is #2.