New York, United States: Japan’s wait for a first male Major championship winner continues. Hopes that Hideki Matsuyama would make the breakthrough at the 120th US Open fell flat on a bruising final day at Winged Foot Golf Club.
While American Bryson DeChambeau rose magnificently to the challenge to claim a six-shot success, Matsuyama was among those who fell foul of the narrow fairways, thick rough and speedy greens.
Five strokes off the pace in joint fourth place heading into the final round, Matsuyama’s victory hopes evaporated on the opening hole where he ran up a double-bogey six.
Stunned by that setback, the two-time winner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship dropped further shots on the second, third and fourth. After covering the front nine in five-over 40, Matsuyama came home in 38.
With a closing 78, Matsuyama ended in a share of 17th spot on 288.
It was his third top-20 finish at the US Open, having tied for 10th at Merion Golf Club in 2013 and finished joint second at Erin Hills in 2017.
While Matsuyama was left to reflect on another close call at a Major, DeChambeau joined Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in an elite group who have captured an NCAA individual title, a US Amateur and a US Open.
Delivering a performance for the ages on what many consider one of the game’s most demanding championship tests, DeChambeau carded a final-round, three-under 67 to earn a decisive six-stroke victory over 54-hole leader Matthew Wolff, who was vying to become the first US Open rookie to win the title since 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet in 1913.
“It's just an honour,” said DeChambeau, who also is the 12th player to have won a US Amateur and a US Open. “I don't know what else to say. It's been a lot of hard work. Mr Nicklaus has been always awesome to me. Tiger has always been great to me. I can't say thank you enough to them for helping push me along to be a better person and a better golfer, as well. To be in the likes of that company is special. I'll forever appreciate that.”
Sixty of the 61 competitors who completed the championship on a chilly and breezy late-summer day battled the West Course to a draw – or much worse (75.03 stroke average). DeChambeau, whose analytical, scientific approach to the game is accompanied by an aggressive ‘bomb-and-gouge’ mentality, took on this bully with a full arsenal of brains and brawn.
The 27-year-old Californian became just the fourth player in the championship’s past 100 years to be the only player to better par in the final round and hoist the trophy. The trio before him were World Golf Hall of Fame inductees Gene Sarazen (1922) and Byron Nelson (1939), and Jack Fleck, who denied Ben Hogan a fifth title in 1955 at The Olympic Club.
DeChambeau is the only player in the six US Opens contested at Winged Foot to post all four rounds at par or better, and was the only competitor to finish in red figures for the week (six-under 274).
“Surreal. It sounds amazing, but surreal,” said DeChambeau of being a US Open champion. “It's been a lot of hard work. It's one of those things that doesn't really hit you. It's not going to hit me until tonight.”
Wolff finished with a 75 to post solo second, while Louis Oosthuizen (281), Harris English (282) and Xander Schauffele (283) rounded out the top five.
