U.S. Open 2026: What to know from Round 1 at Shinnecock Hills

A two-hour fog delay shortly after play began Thursday at Shinnecock Hills means 50 players will have to complete their first round Friday morning.

Those players hope conditions are as benign as they were when darkness fell on Long Island, N.Y., on Thursday evening.

Here are the top notes and numbers to know from Day 1 of the 126th U.S. Open.

1. Wyndham Clark, a U.S. Open champion at Los Angeles Country Club three years ago, entered the week as arguably the hottest player on the PGA Tour. After a scorching Sunday 60 to win the CJ Cup Byron Nelson last month, he finished third at the Memorial and in a tie for 11th last week at the RBC Canadian Open. Clark continued that breakneck pace Thursday, playing his first 16 holes in 6 under before play was suspended.

Including Thursday, Clark has made birdie or better on 32.3 percent of the holes over his last four tournaments. Since the Masters ended, no player has averaged more strokes gained putting than Clark, who has gained well over one per round during that stretch. Clark led the field on Day 1 in that statistic, gaining more than four strokes over the field on Shinnecock’s greens.

Clark leads by four strokes. If it’s still four or more when the first round concludes Friday morning, it would be the largest 18-hole lead at the U.S. Open since Tommy Armour led by five after Round 1 in 1933.

2. A quartet of past U.S. Open champions was 2 under par late in their rounds when play was called.

Dustin Johnson (2016 champion), who has been over par in the opening round of each of his previous 11 majors, is 2 under through 15. Johnson birdied four holes in a row, a career-long streak at the U.S. Open, but made a double-bogey 6 to end his day.

Gary Woodland (2019 champion) holed a whopping 137 feet of putts in his 15 completed holes.

Matt Fitzpatrick (2022 champion) was 2 over par through six, then birdied five of his next eight.

Jon Rahm (2021 champion) has played his first 13 holes without a dropped shot, leaving him as the only bogey-free player.

If either Fitzpatrick or Rahm were to win this week, he would be the first two-time U.S. Open champion from Europe in more than 100 years.

3. Although more heralded amateur players such as Jackson Koivun, Preston Stout and Miles Russell got the bulk of the pre-tournament attention, it was the No. 15 player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking who stole the show. Rising Oklahoma Sooners senior Ryder Cowan, who got into the field after surviving a three-for-two playoff in the Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., qualifier, shot a first-round 68.

Cowan’s round ties the lowest by an amateur in a U.S. Open held at Shinnecock Hills. In 1986, Sam Randolph shot 68 in the third round.

4. Two Americans round out the seven-man group at 2 under. Sam Stevens, whose best finish in a major (tie for 23rd) came at the U.S. Open at Oakmont last June, birdied five of his last 11 holes Thursday to get in the clubhouse with a 68. It’s Stevens’ best opening-round score in a major.

In his U.S. Open debut, Max McGreevy also signed for 68 on Thursday. McGreevy has played in two previous majors — missed cuts at the PGA Championship in each of the last two years. Like Ryder, he has Oklahoma ties, having helped lead the Sooners to the 2017 NCAA Championship.

5. Reigning Masters champion Rory McIlroy shot a 69, his 23rd round in the 60s at the U.S. Open. That ties Phil Mickelson for second on the all-time list, trailing Jack Nicklaus (29). McIlroy had it to 3 under with two holes to play, but he missed the eighth and ninth greens long, leading to bogeys. McIlroy was brilliant on the greens, gaining more than 2 1/2 strokes putting on the field. He was 3-for-6 putting from 10 to 20 feet, a range he has holed at a 30.7 percent clip this season.

This is the seventh time McIlroy has started a U.S. Open with a round in the 60s. He went on to finish no worse than tied for ninth in any of the previous instances. The record for most years between U.S. Open wins is 11, held by Julius Boros and Hale Irwin. This event marks 15 years since McIlroy’s breakthrough at Congressional.

6. It was a scratchy start for Scottie Scheffler, who carded four bogeys and a double bogey in a 72. Scheffler was accurate off the tee, hitting 12 of 14 fairways, but he hit just nine greens in regulation. Scheffler has hit a dozen or more fairways in a round 42 times. Thursday was the first time he did so and hit fewer than 11 greens.

Strokes gained data is available for all 70 of Scheffler’s major championship rounds since 2022. It’s the only time in that span he has lost more than a full stroke to the field with his approach play. Scheffler had an average proximity to the hole Thursday of 52 feet, 7 inches. That was 127th of 155 players on Day 1.

In his last 17 major championship starts, Scheffler has started with a round over par just three times. All three instances have come at the U.S. Open.

7. Keith Mitchell has had better starts. Starting on the back nine, he double-bogeyed the 10th, then bogeyed four of the next six holes, eventually making the turn in 41. But his next nine was a completely different story: an eagle and four birdies for a 29, tying the lowest nine-hole score in U.S. Open history (the seventh time it’s been done).

Nearly 50,000 rounds have been played in U.S. Open history. Mitchell’s is the only one in which a player carded 40 or worse on one nine and a sub-30 score on the other. Mitchell is playing the U.S. Open for the third time; his best finish was a tie for 20th in 2023.

8. When play was called, Shinnecock was playing to an average score of 73.35. That is almost exactly what it played to in Round 1 in 1995 (73.5) and 2004 (73.4). If it’s classic U.S. Open carnage you are after, there’s still reason for hope. At that ’95 Open, 10 players were under par after the first round. In 2004, there were 19. At the end — combined between both Opens — there were just two.

9. That isn’t to say Day 1 was absent of course-related statistics one sees almost exclusively at a U.S. Open. At the 10th hole Thursday, players were just 15-for-73 scrambling, a rate of 20.6 percent. Less than 30 percent of the field hit the green with a tee shot at the par-3 seventh hole. Three holes on the front nine — two, five and seven — yielded proximity averages of more than 60 feet.

10. Looking ahead to Friday morning: Twenty-four of the last 27 U.S. Open winners have been at or within four strokes of the lead after the first round. One of the exceptions, however, was Brooks Koepka, who was six off the pace here in 2018 after an opening 75. Ten of the previous 12 U.S. Open champions were in the top 10 entering the second round.

Play is scheduled to resume Friday at 6:35 a.m. ET.