Justin Rose and Ian Poulter slip five off US Open lead after late mistakes
English duo vow to remain positive at Shinnecock Hills
Saturday 16 June 2018 01:02, UK
Justin Rose and Ian Poulter both vowed to remain positive going into the weekend of the US Open despite frustrating finishes to their second rounds.
Rose was two under for the day and just three behind leader Dustin Johnson with two holes remaining, but his bogey-bogey finish dropped him back to one over par for the tournament.
Poulter then looked to have ensured a place in Saturday's final pairing, with Johnson, when three birdies in four holes lifted him to within one shot of the lead, but he ran up a triple-bogey at the eighth and dropped another stroke at the ninth to tumble into a share of fourth place with Rose.
The 2013 champion covered the back nine in 35 as he offset a bogey at 14 with a birdie at the 18th, and a sublime 235-yard five-iron to five feet at the second set up his second gain of the round.
Two good blows saw him reach the long fifth in two which resulted in another birdie, but he took one step backwards when he three-putted the eighth before a poor drive into the rough at the ninth cost him another shot.
"It's a round I'll obviously take," said Rose. "That bogey-bogey finish is frustrating now, but once everybody has tapped in, I'll re-evaluate and look at my position and think I'm in a great spot going into the weekend.
"Obviously, the three-putt on eight was disappointing, and a bit of concentration just seemed to go over the last couple of holes. I felt it got very distracting, the crowds were thinning out and there was a lot of movement off the ball. There was a lot to deal with coming down the stretch, and I wasn't able to deal with it very well.
"But it's job done really for the first two days. You can't win it through two rounds, and even if I had a six-shot lead right now, I'd be thinking the same way tomorrow. It's just about putting one foot in front of another, we add it up after 72 holes and see where we're at.
"I think this is a great start and a good position to build the week from. I can't change that finish today, so there's no point dwelling on it, honestly. I'm very happy with the position I'm in, and it's all about who's going to go out and play the best golf on the weekend.
"Even if I was four back going into tomorrow, I'd love my position so we'll just see how it plays out."
Poulter's finish was even more disappointing after the veteran's remarkable run of birdies got him to three under par, but he made a mess of the eighth - his 17th - when he blocked his second shot from the fairway into a greenside bunker.
He compounded the error when he knifed his escape attempt way over the green, duffed his first chip and then caught his next pitch heavy before two-putting from 40 feet for a ragged seven.
Poulter then came up short with his approach to the ninth and needed three more to get down from a bunker, taking a huge amount of gloss off what had been an impressive first 32 holes.
"I'm one over par in a US Open, so I'm not sure how else to look at it," he said afterwards. "There's only a couple of US Opens that, if someone offered you that on a Wednesday, where you perhaps wouldn't take it. I'm right in it, I'm tied for fourth.
"There's a disaster on every single hole. Yesterday, I think I saw a stat that every hole was double-bogeyed. A thousand over par from 150 something guys. I mean, the stats don't lie. US Open golf, and especially this golf course, is extremely tricky.
"So I'm in the hunt, I'm happy, I'll go and rectify a couple of those poor seven-irons and we'll have a nice dinner."
Reflecting on his difficulties at the eighth, Poulter added: "I think I got lucky with the lie I had, to be honest with you. I was expecting it to plug as I know there's quite a bit of sand in that trap over there.
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"It was no problem really, a poor bunker shot should have been 20 feet. A really, really poor bunker shot to about 30 yards is really poor. I was trying to hit the perfect bunker shot, I was trying to nip it clean. I was trying to land it half-a-yard over the crest to get it to check out and I felt like I could hit it to about four or five feet.
"I just didn't commit to the shot I wanted to play, and that's the only disappointing thing, really, about the mistake I made."
