Well, johehejo and I just finished our very tough slog around Oakmont. Boy, if you're not striking the ball well, it gets very stressful just hanging in there... and we had an awful lot of wind-in-our-face holes (the only ones we got a good wind on we didn't want it, e.g. #11).
Johehejo was pretty solid throughout in his 81, but really struggled with the starter putter and came in with 38 putts.
I had an extraordinary round of 72, some holes played just beautifully but some absolute disasters in there too, including a horrible meter-stutter on #2 leading to Red-box lie hell and a double. I had a stretch across the middle of the round where I just couldn't hit the ding at all, especially off the tee. 71% driving accuracy is not the way to score well. So, I'll be the first to admit I got very lucky to post a score this good, even though I missed a 2 footer, three 8 footers, and two more at 12 and 13 foot.
However, I also hit some gorgeous shots that saved the day for me, including these 3 WGT Instant Replays (I've never had more than one in a round before):
#1: Flop approach to save par
#9: the textbook wedge shot to have a chance of saving par (but I missed the scary huge side-break 2 footer, arrggghh!)
#17: Eagle from the fairway: 97% pwr PW with full bs, slight upslope, with slight side slope and wind... perfect!
... and some other fine shots helped too: #3 punch LW to 1yd; #5 soft stun with half bs to run nicely over ridge to 6ft; #11 very lucky par-saving bunker shot that almost went in ; and long approach on #18, one of only 3 holes with helping wind, to 13ft... but I missed that putt too!
Here is my screenshot set, with Johehejo's to follow:
(right-click, open new tab to enlarge)
Phew... really glad that's over, and that I haven't put myself out of it. As they say in the Majors, you can't win in the first round, but you can give yourself too much to do to catch up...