The first U.S. Open golf tournament to be played in Los Angeles since 1948 – and the first golf major in the city since 1995 – began Thursday at the Los Angeles Country Club.
San Diego State alum Xander Schauffele – at sixth in the Official World Golf Ranking, topped the leaderboard after the first round, sharing the lead with Rickie Fowler, a Murrieta native. Their 8-under par 62 set a U.S. Open record.
“It’s just Thursday. It’s literally the first day of a tournament. It’s a good start,” Schauffele said, downplaying the auspicious beginning.
Wyndham Clark and Dustin Johnson followed at 6-under.
The U.S. Golf Association, which conducts the sport’s national championships, had long sought to have a U.S. Open at the country club just west of Beverly Hills, but was rebuffed by the leadership, long known for its privacy.
However, that began to change as a new group took over, and wanted to show off restorations to the North Course, where the tournament will be played. In 2009, one year before the work was completed, the club agreed to be the site of the 2017 Walker Cup Match, the biennial competition pitting the U.S. against Great Britain and Ireland.
Years of discussion led to an agreement in 2014 to bring the Open to the club, pending approval by its membership. The announcement that the tournament would be played at the Los Angeles Country Club was made the following year
The tournament was last played in L.A. at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades.
The then-USGA Executive Director Mike Davis had said that “it will be a wider U.S. Open” at the L.A. Country Club, on a course with “generous fairways” that is “firm and fast.”
The Riviera was also the site of the most recent major tournament to be played in Los Angeles, the 1995 PGA Championship.
The $20 million purse is the largest in the tournament’s history, as is the $3.6 million the winner will receive. The previous highs were $17.5 million and $3.15 million last year.
The field of 156 golfers consists of 67 players who earned their spots through qualifying and 89 who were exempt from qualifying due to their recent performances in the U.S. Open, other major championships and various tournaments.
The 123rd U.S. Open began with Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked men’s golfer, as the 6-1 favorite, while Spaniard Jon Rahm is the second choice at 10-1, according to BetMGM, an official betting operator of the PGA Tour.
Englishman Mark Fitzpatrick, the reigning champion, will try to join Brooks Koepka, the 2017 and 2018 champion, as the only players since 1990 to win back-to-back U.S. Opens. Only seven players have won the U.S. Open in consecutive years.
Scheffler was five strokes back of the leaders going into Friday’s play, with Rahm seven back, along with San Diego’s Phil Mickelson.
NBC Sports will cover more than 200 hours of the tournament, including a record 25 hours on NBC. On Friday, coverage will air from 6:40-10 a.m. on the Peacock streaming service, from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on cable’s USA Network, and 5-8 p.m. on NBC.
Coverage continues from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday on NBC. Sunday’s coverage begins on Peacock from 9-10 a.m. and concludes on NBC from 10 a.m.- 7 p.m.
– City News Service and staff reports