Two-time major winner Dustin Johnson said the Los Angeles Country Club North Course was harder than a pair of US Open first-round 62s made it look — and he hammered home that point with a quick quadruple bogey on Friday.
Johnson, the 2016 Masters and 2020 US Open winner, had seven birdies in a six-under par 64 on Thursday that put him two off the lead shared by Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele — who both broke the previous record for a low round at the US Open.
But Johnson said there was plenty of trouble lurking on the LACC North Course, hosting the US Open for the first time, and he found it at the second hole on Friday, where he was in a fairway bunker off the tee.
From there, he found the left rough and the barranca, taking a penalty drop on the way to an eight at the par-four hole.
It was his third career quadruple bogey in a major championship and his first since the first hole of the final round of the 2015 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.
Johnson responded with a birdie at the third hole. He gave a stroke back at the fourth but birdies at the eighth and 12th had him at four-under — five shots behind early leader Wyndham Clark with Fowler and Schauffele yet to tee off.
bb/js