Rickie Fowler leads the way, first-time major winners in contention, the course strikes back and more from Friday at the 2023 U.S. Open

There was a strong fan reaction to the opening round which saw the lowest ever scoring average for a Thursday at the U.S. Open (71.38) and the pair of record-setting 62s shot by both Fowler and Schauffele.

There’s a difference between a getable course and an easy course. LACC is far from easy, but with tame conditions, it’s getable if you find the fairway and dial in an approach. On Friday you could still score, but the course fought back a bit.

“They played most of the tees back, which make it’s harder. The pin placements were pretty good. I mean, what I like is they haven’t tricked anything up yet,” said Charley Hoffman (67), noting how the USGA didn’t make the course difficult for difficulty’s sake. “They have good pin placements, and if you’re in position you can attack. If you’re not, you are sort of trying to make par.”

“I mean, I think fans enjoy watching us struggle, but they also enjoy watching us make birdies and hit the ball close,” he added. “So I think this golf course has been extremely fair so far and I assume they’re going to push it a little bit more on the weekend.”

Count reigning Champion Golfer of the Year Cameron Smith as a fan of the set up.

“I think I just — I think I just love the turf, the way it runs out. I think it will start to play firmer and faster as the weekend goes on,” said Smith (67), who sits in 10th at 4 under. “But yeah, hopefully this place gets really baked out and we can have some fun out there.”

Unlike Smith, put fellow LIV player and reigning PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka in the camp of those who aren’t a fan of LACC.

“I’m not a huge fan of this place. I just think that there’s a — I’m not a huge fan of blind tee shots, and then I think there’s just some spots that no matter what you hit, the ball just ends up in the same spot,” Koepka explained. “I think it would be more fun to play on just like a regular round than it would be a U.S. Open. I mean, there’s, what, two 8s yesterday. That doesn’t happen.”