OAKMONT, Pa. — There is no escaping randomness. It happens in every single golf tournament, even more so when that golf tournament is the U.S. Open held at Oakmont Country Club where the scoring average is nearly 5-over par. Despite what the pre-championship prognostications and statistical models suggested, Thursday at this year’s national championship was bound to be a head scratcher.
It featured a dentist, a high schooler, amateurs from around the country, college stars, national champions and all the best players in the world. Everyone still had hope as tee shots started to fly. Now that they’ve landed, so have many of their chances of contention at the 2025 U.S. Open.
When put into this context, perhaps it does start to make a little sense that — on a golf course and in a championship labeled only for the big and brawny — a 34-year-old who checks in at 5-foot-9 and hails from the other side of the country stands tall atop the leaderboard. J.J. Spaun tied the lowest opening round in a U.S. Open held at Oakmont with his stellar 4-under 66. He clipped the field average by nine strokes and did so without putting a single square on his scorecard.
Spaun rose to the top on a day when world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler stalled with six bogeys en route to a 73, Shane Lowry holed out for the first eagle in a U.S. Open on the par-4 3rd and still barely broke 80, and Patrick Reed made the fourth albatross in recorded U.S. Open history (along with one of the many triple bogeys).
He did so when no one expected it, not even Spaun himself.
“I kind of came out here with no prior history at Oakmont, not really knowing what to expect even U.S. Open-wise,” Spaun said. “This is only my second one. I don’t know if that freed me up in any aspect, but I just tried to kind of take what the course gave me.
“I hit a lot of good shots and tried to capitalize on any birdie opportunities, which aren’t very many out here. But I scrambled really well, too, which is a huge component to playing well at a U.S. Open, let alone shoot a bogey-free round. I’m just overly pleased with how I started the tournament.”
Spaun’s sizzler started to turn heads as Oakmont’s terror began to quake, but it may not have turned them with the same velocity as Scheffler’s stumble. The most recent major champion entered the third of 2025 as the heaviest betting favorite at a major since Tiger Woods in 2009.
It seemed early on like those premonitions would be presented as fact as a birdie got him into red figures quickly, but the real red came in the form of blood as the day continued. Oakmont battled back and bruised the Texan as three putts, silly mistakes, loose swings and shots clanging against flagsticks all came for Scheffler. The result was the third-worst U.S. Open round (related to par) in his career and a deficit that reads seven strokes.
For how random Thursdays can be at majors, water tends to find its level as championships roll on. The cream rises to the top, leaderboard gravity kicks in, predictability is reintroduced and so forth. The unexpected expectedly runs dry. But at a U.S. Open that is built on variable upon variable, sometimes all it takes are four rounds to turn random into reality.
Social media for good
Sometimes the monster isn’t as scary as imagined — at least that was the case for Spaun in Round 1. Sharing that he was confident in his game following a playoff loss to Rory McIlroy at The Players Championship yet nervous due to social media clips showing off the difficulties offered by Oakmont, the right hander went out there and conquered his anxiety.
We’ve heard of LeBron James going “Zero Dark Thirty” mode, players staying off social media during important stretches of the season and athletes using comments as fuel, but this may be a first as Spaun said his nerves actually heightened his focus and ultimately assisted him en route to his 66.
“I was definitely, like, kind of nervous because … all you’ve been hearing is how hard this place is, and it’s hard to not hear the noise and see what’s on social media and Twitter and all this stuff,” Spaun said. “You’re just kind of only hearing about how hard this course is. I was actually pretty nervous.
“But I actually tried to harness that, the nerves, the anxiety, because it kind of heightens my focus, makes me swing better, I guess. I don’t know, I kind of get more in the zone, whereas if I don’t have any worry or if I’m not in it mentally, it’s kind of just a lazy round or whatever out there. I like feeling uncomfortable. I ended up feeling pretty comfortable towards the end of the day, but there’s a long way to go still.”
The most relatable major contender
The “sneaky” aspect of Si Woo Kim’s humor is slowly going away as more people realize this guy is just flat out hilarious. One of the most-liked players on the PGA Tour, the South Korean finds himself in the mix at a second straight major championship, and he did so in an extremely appealing fashion.
Kim gained eight strokes from tee to green primarily due to his irons, which were red hot. Despite striking the cover off the golf ball, he lamented that he still had no idea what he was doing out there — the golf course was too hard for him. It’s an extremely relatable moment from someone who shot 2 under in a U.S. Open, but there was also a hair of truth behind it. When you watched at his play on the greens, well, it looked like someone searching for answers.
Kim ranked outside the top 115 in strokes gained putting, losing more than one stroke to the field while missing six (!) putts inside 8 feet. He knew what he was doing before the putting surfaces, but on them, it may be fair to say he has some work to do.
Holed up in a bunker
There may not be anything in golf that makes you feel like more of an idiot than doubting Brooks Koepka in a major championship. The five-time major winner is tied for the most trophies among this generation of players, but still, coming into Oakmont, he flew in under the radar given his low quality form.
Koepka missed the cut at the Masters and exploded in spectacular fashion at the PGA Championship. He doesn’t have a top-10 finish on LIV Golf since the middle of March and is amid a string of major results that is without a top 20 since this championship two years ago.
So … what changed? How did this turnaround happen so quickly? From where did his 2-under performance come? Koepka credits a good, old-fashioned lashing from his swing coach on Monday.
“I feel good. It’s nice to put a good round together. It’s been a while,” Koepka said. “I’ve been working hard, just got into some bad habits and bad swing positions. We worked pretty hard last week. Pete Cowen and Jeff Pierce were on me pretty good, and Pete got into me again on Monday in the bunker for about 45 minutes. I just sat there, and he scolded me pretty well.
“Yeah, it’s just a matter of executing the feels versus perception for where I’ve been. It’s been so far off, it’s on opposite sides, but now it’s starting to click. Unfortunately, we’re about halfway through the season, so that’s not ideal, but we’re learning.”
Koepka was solid throughout the bag Thursday ranking inside the top half in each strokes-gained category. Amid an afternoon that featured some chaos, he kept his cool. He carded two bogeys, two birdies and an eagle — a relatively clean card.
It’s a step in the right direction and one that may scare some of his peers, which wouldn’t be the first time this week as Koepka noted Justin Thomas approached him at a pre-championship event to discuss his time in the bunker.
“I’ll put it this way: J..T thought he had to come check on me in the bunker. We were in there for about 45 minutes, and he was on the other side of the green. I saw him Monday night. We were at a Rolex function. He was like, ‘I was worried; your head was down.’ Yeah, Pete, I’ll keep that between us. I wasn’t happy with it, but it was something I think you need to hear or I needed to hear at the right time. It’s not the first time he’s done it. He’s not afraid to.
“I don’t like having ‘yes’ people around me. I just want somebody to tell me the truth, tell me what’s going on, what they see. If I start swaying from being Brooks Koepka, then I want someone to call me out on it, and he did a helluva job on it.”
Back again
History suggests one needs to be within four strokes of the lead after the first round of the U.S. Open, but this year’s tournament just feels different. That margin can be extended given the makeup of this leaderboard and those in the mix just a handful behind. The biggest space is being occupied by Jon Rahm.
The Spaniard was sensational alongside Jordan Spieth — who carded five bogey, five birdies and eight pars in classic Spieth-ian fashion — and signed for a 1-under round. It comes after a serious run at the PGA Championship and a serious injury was enough to sideline him at Pinehurst No. 2 last season.
“You want to be there, and you want to compete,” Rahm said of not playing in 2024. “That’s what we’re here for, but whether I can’t tee off in general or you miss the cut, what’s done is done. Tomorrow’s a new day, and you can actually just enjoy it and watch is fantastic.
“I think a lot of my friends like it if I’m home because I think I provide some commentary that — you know, just the knowledge of the golf course that they don’t, and I can explain why certain shots are a little bit harder. So I think my friends like it just because of that. I just enjoy it because I’m a golf fan in general. If I’m not there, I can still enjoy it.”
One of the best rounds of a career
“That’s up there, up there in the top 10 of any rounds that I’ve played. It is just so hard — honestly, every shot you’re on a knife edge,” Robert MacIntyre said after his opening 70. “If you miss it — even if you miss the green, you miss it by too much, you then try to play an 8-yard pitch over the rough onto a green that’s brick hard running away from you.
“Every shot, I’m trying to keep flights as neutral as I can, and sometimes I’ve not got the club to get to the hole. But I just can’t bring in over the green or short of the green. I hit it to 30, 40 feet and try and two-putt it. It just feels like every shot is on a knife edge.”
It sounds absurd mainly because it is the first round of a major championship, but at the same time, it makes sense. The Scotsman has put together some sensational performances throughout his career — highlighted by winning his own national open just last year — but he put his 70 strokes on Thursday up near the rest of them.
Could MacIntyre be a prisoner of the moment? Sure, but it also speaks to what these players think of this place and how hard this golf course played on Thursday.
Room for optimization
Bryson DeChambeau’s opening 73 may have been better than the field average, but it was his worst opening stanza in this championship since 2018. It represents just his second over-par round in a major championship this season (Round 4 of the Masters) and puts him behind the 8-ball heading into Friday.
For as disappointed he may have been with his effort, DeChambeau has plenty to take away from his day. He was greenside in two on the par-5 12th at even par for the championship before he played his final seven holes in 3 over. The two-time winner played the four most “scoreable” holes — Nos. 2, 4, 12 and 17 — in 1 over and failed to adequately take advantage of his distance edge. A couple three putts and poor chips were intertwined, all of which need to be cleaned up.
“For whatever reason, just couldn’t get the speed of the greens dialed in,” DeChambeau said. “I was in the collar a couple times, just three-putted on those holes, and three three-putts and doing whatever happened on 12, then No. 9, three-putting there, too. I mean, it could have been a couple-under round pretty easily.”
A tale of two nines
The way Oakmont cadences had a lot to do with how players felt walking off the golf course. Those who finished on the back nine faced late birdie opportunities, while those who finished on the other side of the clubhouse were holding on for dear life. This was put on display in the morning hours when Xander Schauffele and Ludvig Åberg both signed for 72s.
Schauffele, the two-time major champion, made big-time birdies on Nos. 17-18 to claw closer to his starting point, while the young Swede stumbled. Åberg went from 2 under to 2 over in his closing five-hole stretch, and though it added up to the same total as Schauffele, it seemed so much higher given the nature of the finish.
Åberg wasn’t alone, though as Rory McIlroy turned in 33 and came home eight strokes worse with a 6-over effort on Oakmont’s front nine. The scoring averages between the two sides were not all that different–— the front played nearly 3 over and the back nearly 2 over — but they sure left a different taste in players’ mouths.