At one point during the second round of the 123rd US Open, Utah native Tony Finau was tied for fourth and looked like a serious contender to win his first major golf championship.
But that was as good as it got for the West High graduate, who could never quite figure out Los Angeles Country Club and posted higher scores with each passing round.
Finau shot a 4-over 74 on Sunday and slid down the leaderboard to 32nd place, his 29th major.
Having made the cut at the US Open for the first time since 2020, when he tied for 8th place at Winged Foot Golf Club, Finau turns his attention to next month’s Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in the United Kingdom.
Finau, who has six PGA Tour wins, including four in the last 10 months, is now being called one of the top five or six golfers yet to win a major.
He birdied the 585-yard par-5 1st hole Sunday, but would make only one other birdie in the next 17 holes, carding a 4 on the 524-yard par-5 8th hole.
He added six bogeys, three of which came on the more difficult back nine at the course adjacent to Beverly Hills.
His scorecard for four days read: 68-69-72-74 — 283.
Sunday, Finau hit seven of 13 fairways and 10 of 18 greens in regulation. He was -3.85 in strokes gained putting.
In the last three majors, Finau tied for 26th at the Masters, tied for 72nd at the PGA Championship and tied for 32nd Sunday in the second US Open ever held in Los Angeles.
The other native Utahn in the tournament, Arizona State golfer Preston Summerhays, shot twin rounds of 73 on Thursday and Friday and did not make the cut in his second US Open.
Summerhays was born in Farmington and now lives with his family in Scottsdale, Arizona.