It was a 5.30am start this morning, it wasn’t really a problem as we were waking up around that time anyway.  We got to the club on time and had a bit of breakfast, and James did a good warm up again.  He did a final bit of putting before heading to the first tee.  It was cold this morning and a bit windy, but we were all systems go to hit a good number.  But a slight double cross off the tee led to a bad lie, and a hacked 8 iron got snagged by the rough around 20 yards short of the green.

Conor Dowling’s US Open Report – Thursday 

That was the worst lie I’d seen all week and all of a sudden we’re walking off with a 7.  You plan and hope for a good start and you end up with a triple, I guess it’s typical of the US Open.  That set us back a bit but James played a lot nicer today.  He was six over for two holes and three over for the other 16.  I know all 18 holes count, but I think that proved he played some pretty good golf today when you look at some of the scoring.  He did get three birdies today, including one on the last hole, so it was nice to walk off those greens with something.  The guys playing with us were just as sound again today, and Bubba was very impressive shooting one under for the round.

The final score was disappointing but it was a great experience.  Lots of people were saying that a first US Open is always going to be tough but he wasn’t depth at all and it just wasn’t his week.

After the round I put the clubs away and we got a bit of lunch.  We went back out in the afternoon and followed Tiger, Rory and Justin Thomas for a few holes.  It’s very strange to be watching the most popular players in the world at a major, and have next to nobody following them.  We have no firm plans for the weekend, but we’ll probably watch some more golf while we are here.