If you had told Keith Mitchell that he’d sign for an even-par 70 to begin the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, he’d have taken it and run. That was especially true after the way his round began when he went out early on Thursday in blustery conditions and made a mess of the back nine (his opening nine) on the William Flynn design.
Mitchell opened with a double bogey on the par-4 10th after flying his approach shot over the green. Then he dropped shots at 11, 13, 14 and 16 to go out in six-over 41. His U.S. Open seemed destined to end before it even got started.
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Instead, Mitchell did something that hadn’t been done before in U.S. Open history.
History started on the par-4 1st, where Mitchell drove it near the front of the green, pitched to 11 feet and poured in the putt for birdie. After a par at the 2nd, Mitchell stuffed his approach shot on No. 3 to three feet for birdie to get back to four over. He followed that by rolling in a 10-foot putt for birdie on the 4th.
Then came the par-5 5th. Mitchell’s drive split the fairway and then hit his approach from 229 yards to 12 feet. He drained the eagle putt to make it five straight 3s to start the front nine and get back to one over on the round.
Mitchell’s 3 streak came ended when he made a par at the par-4 6th. He followed that with pars on No. 7 and No. 8 before hitting his approach shot on the par-4 9th to eight feet and making the putt for a closing birdie to come home in 29.
With that closing birdie, Mitchell became the first player in U.S. Open history to shoot 40 or worse on one nine and break 30 on the other in the same round.
Mitchell’s 29 is also the lowest nine-hole score on the front nine at Shinnecock Hills. It ties the lowest nine-hole score in history at Shinnecock, which Neal Lancaster shot on the back nine during the final round of the 1995 U.S. Open.
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Due to expected high winds, the USGA syringed the greens and had them rolling a bit slower than initially planned. But that didn’t make Thursday’s test any easier. After a two-hour fog delay, Shinnecock greeted the players with the typical brutality that has come to define it as a U.S. Open anchor site.
“It’s just a difficult day,” Brooks Koepka, who won the U.S. Open at Shinnecock in 2018, said after shooting three over.
“I think with the conditions today, anything under par or anything around even par is a good score,” said Rory McIlroy, who posted one under. “It was a day to really just keep yourself in the tournament and not shoot yourself out of it.”
Mitchell was on the brink of ejecting himself from the tournament. Instead, he did what the U.S. Open asks those who want to stay around for the weekend and potentially have a shot at lifting the trophy — grind it out.
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