4-way tie for lead as US Open reaches climax

Play was under way at the US Open on Sunday with four players sharing the lead, just the second time that has happened in the tournament after 1973 Oakmont.

Americans Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth, Australian Jason Day and Branden Grace of South Africa are the pace-setting quartet at four under par 206.

They are three shots clear of the rest of the field and the odds are firmly that one of them will get the job done at demanding Chambers Bay golf course south of Seattle.

Much criticised over the week by many players for its fiery fairways and bumpy greens, the links-type lay out was again set to be a monster challenge.

Conditions though were perfect as they had been throughout the week.

The potential storylines are strong and none more so that for Day, who collapsed at the end of Friday's second round with a vertigo attack, but, still suffering, came out to put together one of the most remarkable rounds in US Open history on Saturday.

At times he struggled to stay on his feet, looked distressed throughout, and even had difficulty glancing up to follow his ball flight.

But somehow he kept his game together as others around him came to grief on a golf course that takes no prisoners. Day on the contrary picked up shots.

"I didn't feel that great coming out early, and then I felt pretty groggy on the front nine just from the drugs that I had in my system, then kind of flushed that out on the back nine," the 27-year-old Queenslander said.

Spieth, the 21-year old Texan who is seen as the new face of American golf, replacing the fast-fading Tiger Woods, is on the cusp of doing something only five other players have done - winning the Masters and the US Open in the same year, thus getting halfway to pulling off an unprecedented calendar-year Grand Slam.

He would also be the youngest US Open champion since Bobby Jones in 1923 and the youngest to win two career majors since Gene Sarazen in 1922

Age, however, he believes, does not come in to play.

"I don't think of age as having anything to do with it," he said.

"I think we're all peers tomorrow, and there's four of us tied for the lead. There's a lot of guys that can play a good, solid round from tomorrow and shoot two or three under and come from behind."

Johnson many believe is long overdue for a major win having come close in all four Grand Slam tournaments in the past.

He is the biggest hitter on the PGA Tour and this year appears to have added a finesse around the greens to his game and a maturity to his approach.

"I've been in the situation a few times so I know how to handle myself," he said.

"I know what it takes to get it done. And tomorrow I just need to go out there and focus one shot at a time."

The outsider among the leading foursome will be 27-year-old Grace.

But he is a proven front-runner having won on each of the six occasions he has been leading or sharing the lead afer 54 holes.

Grace, seeking to become the third South African to win the US Open title after Gary Player, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, said that patience was the key.

"It's a tricky golf course. If you let it slip and you get the wrong bounce you're looking at making bogeys," he said.

"You just have to try to keep those things off the scorecard and make those pars. I think a good, level round tomorrow might just do it."
Source: AFP