Jon Rahm of Spain plays a shot from a fairway bunker on the 18th hole during the third round of the 122nd U.S. Open Championship at The Country Club on June 18, 2022 in Brookline, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
Rahm won the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, and he made birdies on 14, 15, and 17 to reach 5 under Saturday evening. He walked to the 18th tee with a determined look on his face., but his tee shot went into a fairway bunker on the left and he appeared to have a clean lie, but his second shot drove into the fescue-topped upper portion of the bunker and then rolled to within inches of where he’d been standing.
Rahm’s third shot landed in the massive bunker that guards the front of the green. From there, he escaped to 20 feet past the hole, but his bogey-saving putt hung on the left side and he was forced to tap-in for a double bogey. Rahm ended the day at 3 under, one shot behind Zalatoris and Fitzpatrick.
“I’m very content. I’m not going to lie,” Rahm said. “It’s infuriating, in a sense, to finish that way with how good I played those holes, but like I kept telling myself, if on the 14th today you told me you can post 1-over par and not play the last five holes, I would have ran to the clubhouse because of how difficult it was playing. I would have taken it, no questions asked. I think I have to consider that. I have 18 holes, and I’m only one shot back. That’s the important thing.”
Sunday will be a new day and Rahm still has a great chance to become the eighth golfer to win the U.S. Open in back-to-back years.
Brooks Koepka is the most-recent winner of consecutive U.S. Opens, winning in 2017 at Erin hills and at Shinnecock Hills in 2018. Curtis Strange won the first two U.S. Opens here at The Country Club in 1988, then won at Oak Hill.
Other two-time winners include Ben Hogan (1950-51), Ralph Guldahl (1937-38), Bobby Jones (1929-30), John McDermott (1911-12) and Willie Anderson (1903-1905).
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