THE US OPEN 2025 // DAY TWO

Do you like the sound of two people Google’ing facts about day two at the US OPEN in Oakmont… then GOODNESS me you’ve come to the right place! The Toms are back with a handful of Tepid Takes and the term ‘peppering the rough’ has never been more apt.

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Email – thetoms@golfisruiningmylife.co.uk

it’s the US Open day number two and we ask has it all gone a bit too far how much pain can you watch professional golfers go through two days enough’s enough should they change the entire course no they can’t what’s going to happen next oh yeah baby you guys asked for it so these guys delivered welcome to day number two of the US Open at Oakmont the Gur review and we’ve just had a 7-minute tech issue and I feel stressed hi Tom oh I love it when other people have tech meltdowns and there’s nothing you can do i just sit sat back and relaxed um I am thrilled Tom as we go through day two here on the show to discover that golf is ruining not just our lives for once it’s ruining professional golfers lives because I’m on the brink I’m on the brink of performing something of a U-turn right i’m fascinated to know what this is because part of me thinks you’re about to say that you think the US Open is the best major which is wrong as an opinion no that is not what I’m going to say no my U-turn the best major issa obviously my U-turn is this i think it might be a bit too much guys oh we got too hard tom feels bad only three go is it two golfers or three golfers under par you don’t think that’s good enough i think it’s just getting a bit silly i think it’s a bit and I I’m very I actually think the weather thing is um is an intervention from a higher power if you choose to believe in such things because it’s going to mean that the going into the weekend and Paul McInley on Sky Sports was great about this talking about how this will be more like a test that is synonymous with the PGA Tour what the first two days has been is not really a test that has anything to do with the PGA Tour and what those golfers are used to and I kind of I kind there’s I have a whiff of Yeah you you’re right it’s been a bit much that first green Tom and a green that that tilts away from you it reminds me of the 17th at my place it drives me nuts and then watching players hit balls down a long hole a fairway that’s that’s an 11 on the stimp onto a green that’s 6,000 on a stimp into rough that is that is you know knee high because they’re a foot off the green yeah John Thomas is touching the roof exactly so not for the first time um it just is like actually I’m not enjoying watching this once you’ve seen it a few times you start to go Yeah it’s hard to watch them struggle so much there’s only so many times you could see a really bad shot I guess and we’re seeing it again and again and again could I say something about Oakmont very quickly yeah you’re going to say you don’t like the motorway i I don’t yeah I don’t love the motorway also I don’t know if I love it as a course i’m just it’s I don’t I don’t think it’s very beautiful to look at like in the way that when you look at like a Lynxy course over here I don’t know it looks rugged and part of the landscape and forged by nature and all this sort of stuff whereas what I look at there is at times it just looks like a big football pitch it’s just too expansive it’s just not doing to me and I don’t know i also found this quite weird watching it last night as well it felt like a lot of the stands were empty there wasn’t many people around well yeah some of that is the weather a lot of people have been told to stay away because they had weather coming in and they’re very nervous about thunder and lightning and you know their patrons getting hit by lightning which is reasonable but also some of that is um you know you’d get the same watching the Open in the UK the Open as it is um if you watched that at 6:30 in the morning because they they tee off on Thursday Friday they te off at 7:30 in the morning their time and it is not full yet and you’d get the same with the open it takes time for people to to arrive i thought maybe as well something to do with the fact that the golfers that are doing quite well and maybe not the golfers that are going to get a fan base following them around so you’re not seeing an awful lot on TV of like Rory for example when I was watching yesterday I didn’t see much of him at all but no he might have a massive crowd but because he was something like eight over or something mad they were just not showing an awful lot of I don’t know man i just It’s not doing course just isn’t doing it for me i’m just not busted with it i come back to my theory which did actually one of the few things I’ve said on Tik Tok that people have actually agreed with what about and you and this is pointed mainly at the USPGA but I’m sort of almost pointing this at the US Open as well america you need to up your your in between the best majors are obviously Augusta and the Open and I can’t decide which I prefer out the two of them but this PG this PGA and then the US Open you need to up your game you need to give us more we need to be seeing more personality in better courses otherwise I think the rest of the world need to have a go it’s just not fair we’re watching this stuff and I’m just thinking it’s not a great spectacle it doesn’t look that good and the thing about golf right when I play when you play with someone even if you’re playing against someone broadly there’s a go on get in get in the hole do you know what I mean i love that about golf i’ve always want you you’re it’s all of you even when you’re playing an opponent you’re always playing golf you’re always playing against golf do you know what I mean you’re you’re versus the game you’re all suffering the greatest opponent is the course that’s right right so watching someone do well against the course is satisfying and watching someone do badly is on TV is briefly entertaining and then very quickly becomes oh for God’s sake and I very I’ve gone through that exactly and I’ve gone through that journey very quickly i’ve gone from going “Oh look at Bryson he’s just hit three out of the rough.” To thinking “Okay this this is I want to see some birdies now i want to I want to celebrate people defying the odds of the fact that golf is impossible.” Yeah it has been a hard watch at times the guys I feel bad for are the BS on 17 18 maybe one of them’s on 16 cuz play has been suspended what I don’t understand with this is play has been suspended yet they have still done the cut i don’t Every now and again golf will throw up a moment like this and when people talk to me about it I’m like yeah I don’t understand don’t understand what’s happened to do no it’s math it’s because enough of the field have got to the average isn’t going to change there’s only four players left out there and even if all four of those guys shot ones for their last few holes it wouldn’t change the average and therefore the cut those four or five players don’t have an impact on the cut mathematically no but there’s a guy there’s there’s like look at like um um this Lawrence bloke right he’s on 17 so he’ll have said the cut is whatever he could triple bogey everything now and not make the cut yeah yeah well maybe that wouldn’t affect the cut line maybe it wouldn’t affect the cut no it wouldn’t affect the cut line even if he like well equally even if he got ones all the way in it wouldn’t affect the cut line there’s Yeah him going down and shooting badly wouldn’t affect the cut line him doing his last you know two shots to finish the round wouldn’t affect the cut line so but it is it is very funny the fact that there are people they’re all on sort of 16 17 18 um let’s spare a thought guys for and this might have changed by the time you’re listening or watching this brady Kulkins who is on 25 over par he’s currently on the 17th i think it’s over for his day he may well have missed the cart um and he’s still got to go out there on the weekend in front of all the people who are there to watch the weekend golf and just sort of go through the motions of finishing up and then instantly it’s like you’ve been it’s like you’ve been invited to a party you arrive in your finery ready to go and someone says “Great have that one canopate and now get lost.” Like it’s embarrassing see you later you’ve missed your private jet cuz you booked your private jet for Friday cuz you knew you weren’t going to make the weekend now technically you have made the weekend in the worst way possible uh so then off off you go off you go home there there are a few players that are still going to have to go out there um there’s someone 19 over not finished um C Johnson 17 over George Dwangman an American player is and I’m not laughing at this score at all because this is actually an illustration of what a ridiculous course it is 35 overpar for two rounds he shot an 86 and an 89 now again Tom again I return to the question we asked several times in the last few episodes of this of this show what would we score at Oakmont and when you think George Drangmany who is playing in um the open is George Drungmany the dentist guy and I mean how many times have we mentioned George Bungani on this show jungy Junggony or Bungy yeah I’m we’re never going to I don’t think I don’t think he is the dentist guy no um okay the fact that I shot another 90 at my home course yesterday leads me to believe that I’m probably am going to do a 140 around this place 140 with a guaranteed mental breakdown though i will I I will consider quitting golf in the middle uh I I mean yeah he’s so he qualified he qualified for it and stuff and I mean he’s he’s done amazingly to get there and I feel I genuinely feel sorry for him it’s just horrible so many amazing golfers aren’t going to make the weekend as well shane Lowry at 17 over Shane Lowry he’s And also Shane Larry has one of the best short games the thing I love about Shane Lowry which I try and do is he’s just got his 54 degree wedge and he uses it for pretty much everything around the green he’s not one of these oh I’ll do a 50 chip and run i’ll do a I’ll try and do a 60 up and under he just has his 54 and um you know his short game and his putting is like top top top draw and Nicholson not there um the is he Mickelson i I think so yeah because he’s uh he’s eight over i think that I think the cut line’s four as it stands at the moment I think right um so Mikkelson won’t be there ludvig won’t be there has Ludvig missed it yeah sure patrick Patrick Reed yeah yeah i know for I know for a fact Mickelson and Ludvig aren’t aren’t going to be there yeah yeah hang on but if No that’s not right if the cut’s four over that’s not right if the cut’s four over there’s only 23 players left in the tournament for the weekend okay but hold on i know oh this is why we shouldn’t do podcasts very early in the morning guys uh Tomman’s going to entertain you while I do some googling okay so the people who are on for over uh include Rasmos Hog Hogard who I love we talked about him a couple days ago as well um Bob Mack I think Bob Mack is still one to watch he shot 70 on the first day he shot 74 hence why he’s four over because par is is 70 um him being there on the weekend and being in decent shape is really interesting to me i think he could do he could do well um mainly because of this links thing this idea that it’s this course is an American response to watching Scottish links so it’s a kind of Americanized links course um so I’d like to see him do well uh but yeah no I think the cut is going to be the cut for me especially because I think Rory has made it apparently Rory has made the weekend yeah Rory has made it okay here we go famous golfers that haven’t made the cut bryce Desombo’s not made the cut ludvig’s not made the cut justin Thomas hasn’t made the cut no Neman’s not made the cut um Windham Clark’s not made the cut patrick Canley Tommy Fleetwood Dustin Johnson Cameron Smith Shane Lowry Phil Mickelson Seb Straer Justin Rose god these are household names not there this weekend yeah man i think so i think the cut’s seven over then mate I think it’s seven over because that’s all people you’ve just described as eight over and above so so so let’s go through people who have who have made the cut and you know at seven over you you’re you’re out of the running right cuz no the thing about this is Well actually having said that let’s think about the weather right so it’s rained it’s going to be so much damper maybe someone is going to go out and do a serious thing on a Saturday and shoot a crazy shoot the lights out 64 thing but I just I just can’t I just can’t see that happening i can’t see anyone who’s anyone who’s more than three or four over par unless the field drops unless those leaders drop into that realm I can’t see anyone punching upwards can you no absolutely not no the question is is JJ Spawn still bogey free that’s the That’s the question that I want answering has he got a bogey now do we think yeah someone had an amazing bet on that um that would return a mad amount of money if someone went bogey free for the whole uh for the whole um tournament i No that ain’t going to happen guys um I think he bogeied the first potentially um but look what we should do let’s have let’s have a little some products would you are you up for some products Tom do you want to have a little nip over and look at some products maybe oh goodness me would I love some products of course prize go products then we’ll come back and we’ll do we’ll do some positive stuff let’s look at who might win this thing come on let’s do that right welcome back to the uh the analysis of the second day uh of the US Open is it analysis or is it us just googling where the Oh there’s a lot of goo No there’s a lot of Googling going on i absolutely can’t deny there’s a lot of Googling going on uh but you know if you wanted a professional uh rundown of what’s happening at the major you wouldn’t come to us you come to us for Yeah for googling I suppose so who do we think could win it who’s there or thereabouts well let’s go through it shall we so at the moment the leader is um Sam Burns who shot an unbelievable 65 yeah which is wild isn’t it five under five under round two 65 he shot two over on day one he shoots five under on this and and the context of that I mean the xG the strokes gained off compared to the field must be insane um to be doing that like everyone else is shooting on I wonder what the average scores for the second round I don’t know because we’re not professional pundits but it would definitely be over just to sort of prove the non-professional punditry moment I just want to double down on what feels like quite an hectic episode can I just say what I’m going to do go on I just need to go plug in my laptop oh my god this is a this episode you you do not get this from doity you You don’t get you don’t get Dame Laura saying has anyone got a battery pack for my iPhone so I can tell you what the average score was for the second round it’s just unbelievable this is what you’re paying for guys this is what happens if you come for free content it’s going to be absolute car boot sale for this guy charges you um so look if we um I I want to dig into who’s going to win it right because at the moment so Sam Burns with that unreal 65 sam Burns is definitely going to be in the mix obviously but but again I’m so glad we were hammering Victor Hovland on Net Message last night obviously we got the ping group so we were really giving Victor the big the big up and it’s it’s worked for him he’s he’s doing well he’s currently standing at third it’s Victor on the ping WhatsApp group he loves a gif doesn’t he yeah he does jim accidentally put that photo in there and quickly deleted it who was that supposed to be for it’s quite sexy can I just say well I want to come back to Victor but I want to I want to give you an example of what happens at this thing 69 for John Ram on day one one under par incredible round everyone including us obviously goes oh hello John Ram Ram Ramy’s back in town ramo Ramo day 275 right that is the problem so you can look at a Sam Burns and you can look at anyone who’s up there look at Spawn Victor Adam Scott look at those guys and go incredible but they you still there’s always a 75 or 76 unless now with the softer conditions those conditions have changed maybe they’ve weathered the storm excellent analogy because now it’s softened up i don’t know man i But I’d love to see I’d love to see Victor get close but he’s going to Yeah the thing about Tier Hatton as well Tier Hatton’s an interesting one cuz he cuz he played he’s tied 12th he had an okay day yesterday he’s three over which does not rule him out of this at all i think you’re right i think today is going to be really interesting cuz if it softens up a little bit and the Greens can take a ball a bit more and it slows those Greens down you might see some half decent scoring and then we could be on to something quite interesting because there’s loads of golfers then who that brings in because there’s it’s so tight there’s like six shots in it for the top between the top and tied 12th there’s six shots in it yeah yeah and I think the the the the reason why you look at Adam Scott he shot 270s he’s just shot par twice you know and he’s he’s third isn’t that amazing he’s shot par twice and he’s third there’s no other tournament in the world where that would happen right um and I wonder if that’s going to with with the change in conditions that might no longer be enough to go out there and shoot par and now it will be a case of right you got to go if you want to win this thing you got to go out and shoot on especially on a Saturday on a moving day you got to go and shoot 65 or 66 so then you got to look at is there is there something to be said of hold on he shot those scores on the hardest days he kept his nerve oh no absolutely yeah the two hardest days of the tournament if he can now find another gear which he definitely has got it in the locker to do maybe someone maybe someone who’s gone out there and been quite consistent so far consistently good is someone to look at is going to explode well I don’t know the thing is I tell you what’s really hard about this to do our crap analysis is um it’s like their real true form is is under a cloak of the misery and bad luck of those conditions do you know what I mean bryson might say “I’m playing really well but I hit those you know I I had dropped six or seven shots through flubs in the rough that were you know half an inch off the fairway so it’s very hard to to see through the fog of how punishing the course is and find out who is actually on good form the people who are there now in the mix right at the top it isn’t about form I would maybe suggest it’s more about they played safe and they pro maybe they just got lucky and they they got those shots by the green and they managed to chip out because the line in the rough was okay so I think it’s it’s different with this tournament i um I want to bring this back into maybe more our wheelhouse and do the sort of thing here that you guys come to us for that you’re not going to get from Dame Laura Davis um on Sky how are we all watching it cuz I found myself watching it on the phone um while and watched Love Island last night which didn’t feel like the best way of consuming this great sport no yeah I’m not doing that no um I am watching it um sorry for some reason my brain has has leapt to some sort of Here we go uh cheap tory and extremely rude joke about you watching this golf with this rough compared to the uh pubeless bodies of Love Island and being able to say “Look that’s what real rough looks like that’s what that’s what it looks like when you let things grow i don’t know why my brain’s done that thing there isn’t there we’ve probably that for 5 minutes and there’s a real Yeah there’s almost a joke there i don’t know why but we’ll come back to that by Sunday I think i’m sorry I said that i last night I ended up watching it with the on the sofa on the Lshape i get the L position for the legs obs and I’ve got my in-laws down at the moment for Father’s Day and so I had my wife next to me and then I had my in-laws and guess what we all four of us watched it my kids were outside playing in the street and we watched the open just the US Open just sitting on the sofa and I was chatting to them about stuff that was going on it it was quite maybe they were being polite but I think it was quite interesting for them cuz it’s so mad yeah okay well well that’s absolutely huge how you’ve managed to pull that coup off with your wife on a Friday night is absolutely unbelievable i middleage guys the idea of coming home on a Friday night by the way after I played golf Tuesday Thursday Friday and going Yeah yeah i know you’ve not seen me but should we watch the USO what do you mean no did you watch a bit of Love Island as well or were you totally Oh yeah i had Love Island i have a load i I have to go and sit on the armchair underneath the telly so I have actually Love Island blaring in my ears oh my gosh um and having to watch it on my phone i’m just fascinated by people’s setups of how they’re how they’re doing this and how they managed to convince their other halves to to go through this cuz there’s stuff that M will watch m will watch the Masters because she knows it’s a big deal the idea of watching No she’s she’s so far so far out of this it’s just not the golf events that punch but also don’t forget until the Ryder Cup now in September this is the last big American Friday night watching golf on the telly event really because it comes over to Europe now and the the tour swings around then we’ve got things like the Genesis um open at the Renaissance and obviously the Open it comes over to the UK and Europe and suddenly you know what I There aren’t those Friday nights um staying up and asking to have the telly yeah true true true true fine okay Tom should we start putting some predictions as who’s going to move then who who are we having to be in a great position by the time Sunday rolls around i think it’s got to be some household names if I’m honest so I like Johnny Vegas johnny Vegas johnny Vegas how the hell Johnny Vegas is still there I’ll never know he’s like tied 20th is he 23 or something i think it’s cuz he’s good at golf he’s four over i think you cannot look any more than four over i just I’d love Jordan Speed to get in the mix but I don’t think you can look more than four over at the moment johnny Johnny Vegas didn’t drop a shot yesterday did he i don’t think yeah 70 yeah shot par unbelievable unbelievable from Johnny Vegas the 40-year-old what a lad what a lad uh right yeah so I like Victor Hovind to do it i also like the idea of um if he could just hold his cool because he lost it a few times on Thursday when I was watching tier Hatton could do something could Rory go on a charge it feels unlikely but he you know when he was under the caution he pulled it out like there was it didn’t feel that he was going to be there for the weekend and then birdie two of the last four I think and went on to do it m you know who’s who out there could shoot a crazy score today rory obviously can um I tell you what was mad yesterday did you see Scotty after the round scotty Sheffller goes to the practice uh range with his um coach and his caddy and he’s hitting balls for hours and the coverage is brilliant on Sky Sports they kept just going over to the range and saying he’s still there the best player in the world one of us he’s still there getting crossed very you know obviously he wasn’t miked up but you could see he was really animated and angry about what was going on with his round and you just think and they were saying this in commentary like Scotty everyone’s suffering out there man this is not a you thing this is not your game not being good enough if you’re if you’re they made a really interesting point if you’re swinging bad if you feel you’re swinging bad going onto the range you are just embedding you’re putting the bad things in the groove go home see Meredith go and see your kid go do something else watch um the new series of Hacks on Now TV and then uh come back tomorrow and start again give yourself a break man it was really interesting he’s obsessed he slammed a wedge into the floor on a approach shot I would have paid him good money for um it was an absolutely fine wedge it was on the green slammed the wedge into the ground absolutely furious i was like mate but there’s an interesting point made which is he’s not used to being the first to put on greens as well he never is he’s always the last one to put so he’s getting used to this thing of like having to be the first to put cuz he’s not as he’s not as close to the pin as everyone else it’s really fascinating he’s one step he’s one step off sorry he’s one step off standing on the green counting his score yeah uh double another double um it’s especially for someone like him he won’t be used to playing this sort of golf can you imagine you’re normally you’re normally shooting seven eight unders every single round and now you’re out here scrabbling for par and you’re having to go bogey saves just like that as a mentality thing must be really weird to nor when you’re normally putting for birdies and trying to do that sort of thing and now you’re scrabbling to save par that’s such a head flip i think that’s a really really interesting point because I think that counts for Scotty but for all of them all of the guys your Shane’s um your um your Rory’s the like you say these guys are used to being the seven under guys and now this is why you maybe see what we would call slightly dismissively journeymen coming through you know what I mean this is why because those guys are going yeah this is what golf is like for us now you know what golf is like for us all the time we’re used to shooting two three overpar this is what we do this is this is psych logically familiar territory to be a struggle for you guys for those top 10 players all right you are simply not not used to to feeling this so maybe there’s something in there it must be a weird setup as well knowing that and I know this is broad strokes and not every golfer is like this but more often than not I think they are on the PJ tour these days hit it as hard as far as you can get it down there and you’ll muscle something out when you get down there cuz these players are so good out the rough now that is pretty much I would say the strategy of the PGA Tour not so not as far as Bryson went but that seems to be what players want to do imagine now standing on a par five with a 3-wood in your hand knowing that if you spray this it’s a whole blow up because you’re going to be in the rough and then you can’t get out the rough that’s a They’re not as you say Tom they’re not used to that no and it’s So this is the thing it’s the clever experienced players who are going to come through which is why I would look at Adam Scott i would look hard at Adam Scott he is class that guy and as long as he doesn’t wobble when he goes “Oh my god I’m I’m nearly going to win the US Open.” He’s one to look at it’s professional stuff today guys it really is a good one um well I uh Tom I need to go and um get ready to play golf with you this afternoon yeah we’re very excited we’re going to be playing Centurion make sure um you follow us on my EG tom Price at Muzzwell Hill Golf Club tom Green at Porters Park Golf Club you can find us there and you can see our scores because we’re going to card it which I think is a disaster i I’m trying to card everything I do on the golf course now and maybe maybe that is why I’m playing so goddamn awful because I literally have a card in my hand pretty much every single time but I really like the Straa thing where on Straa you go and do a run and you log it and then you have a nice little catalog of all these places that you’ve ran in and oh this is then the time I was working at the Alawawaii festival and I ran around the Alawawaii festival this is the time I was on my honeymoon and I ran around Nairobi right it’s I think it’s cool to be able to look back on my and go that’s when I played Centurion that’s when I played Wed yeah yeah yeah yeah we’re going to be doing it so that’s the caveat to the fact that we shoot 90s out there today which is fine because you know George Dwangman is is 35 over pass so we’re going to be like more like George with the thinking man’s Dwan um anyway we’ll see you early on Sunday morning for analysis of the Saturday and then early on Monday morning as we crown the winner of the US Open yeah don’t forget the coverage starts at 4:00 today on Sky Sports in the UK today really will be a really really good watch it’s going to be a fascinating day it’s moving day something will happen i guarantee you it’s going to be interesting see you next time