U.S. Open LIVE reaction: Paul Zeise recaps Round 1 at Oakmont for Rory McIlroy, J.J. Spaun & more

Post-Gazette sports columnist Paul Zeise reacts to a busy first day of the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club.

He gives thoughts on unexpected leader J.J. Spaun; local hero Matt Vogt; and top-ranked names including Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and more.

Then later, he weighs in on Steelers coach Mike Tomlin’s decision not to rule out a training camp holdout for star pass rusher T.J. Watt.

welcome welcome to the big show it is Paul Zeiss of course we are here at the US Open again we are here at Oakmont Country Club uh back in the back of a radio booth uh that not that that actually matters but just in case you’re wondering why the background is a little different than it was yesterday well yesterday we had to uh do an audible uh but we always like to bring it to you every single day and of course uh today we’re going to talk a little bit about the US Open to start it was kind of an interesting day from the standpoint of this two things that stood out to me about today number one these guys spent the entire week the entire week complaining about how tough this course is how you know difficult it’s going to be to score how how bad some of the places are to try and get out of the rough all that stuff remember all that yeah and then this morning basically some guy named JJ Spawn comes out and shoots four under now JJ Spawn to me um is a guy who probably there’s a lot of people out there who think oh well he must be some young new guy actually he’s been on the scene for a while he’s been sort of in and out of you know the the PGA tour i think he’s bounced between the you know the corn ferry tour uh and and whatever but the reality is um he’s 34 going to be 35 years old and he has one count him one PGA Tour win so you know he’s a probably closer to like a journeyman type guy than he is a young you know upandcomer guy that that that just comes out of nowhere if that makes sense and so I think it’s kind of interesting and ironic you know we talked all week about how difficult the course is going to be and everything else uh but I think one of the biggest thing is it’s it’s just goes to show that regardless of what you know the leadup is and all that other stuff the reality is um you know guys are going to go out here and when you have I don’t know what is it 120 130 however many guys you have in the field you’re going to have five six seven eight guys that actually really figure it I mean these are the best players in the world these are the best players in the world so even though the course is really difficult still playing pretty difficult and all the other good stuff and you see guys like Sheffler sort of slaughter you know right now he’s just sort of you know slopping around a little bit rory had a tough day today i mean Shane Lowry I think you know is a guy that’s won a major before and and I think he was plus nine or 10 last time I looked it i mean yeah a course is going to win more than it’s going to lose but the bottom line is when you have this many guys who are out there when you have this many guys that are out there that are the best in the world what you’re going to have happen is some of two three four five of them are going to shoot really low now do I think JJ Spawn is going to be in the you know in the uh discussion on Sunday probably not probably not you know he he played really well today kept himself out of trouble had some really nice uh paray putts uh but the reality is it’s like one of those things where you know it feels like sometimes you you you really really really have to um just sort of get through the first day and figure out where you’re at uh as we speak it looks like uh Sun uh Sunj is actually in the lead but I just looked up at the monitor you know there’s a monitor right above my head it looks like he’s in a lot of trouble uh on I guess it’s hole three looks like he just went from basically one sand trap to the rough so uh that could be changing at any point here uh that could be changing where he comes back down to the lead and uh if I’m not mistaken this is him right here uh getting ready to hit and so you know he’s got a lot of work to do just to try and get a part um and and you know that’s the nature of this uh course right now it it’s the nature of it is you’ve got to survive your bad shots you you you’ve got to survive your bad shots you’ve got to find a way to minimize your bad shots minimize you know the shots that that that put you in like the rough or put you in like the sand traps uh you know whatever you’ve got to find a way to get the ball close to the hole uh from really really tough spots and if you can do that you give yourself a chance to make pars you give yourself a chance to make some uh maybe some birdies but more importantly pars i mean I think honestly if you asked every one of these golfers today what they want and what they’re looking for every single one of them would say “You know what if I get par I’ll be happy.” Day one if you’re you know even par guess what day one you’re probably going to be in pretty good shape so I think that that’s going to be you know the key here when we look at um this as you go forward um you know the key is going to be making sure that your bad holes don’t turn into awful holes um you know Rory had Maroy had a really weird day to be honest he started the day minus two in the first nine holes in fact I think he was minus two in like the first three holes and then something weird happened you know he started making pars and you thought okay you know that’s what you do in this you you try and grab a couple of early birdies and then you hope that you can par and get yourself in situation where you’re under par at the end of the round but what happened is he just sort of fell apart on the back nine um he he you know he came up uh he started on the back nine uh hole 11 and 12 he went birdie birdie so he was two under through three and you know what the next you know two four six hole seven holes he was uh uh even par so you know he made the turn at minus two and you’re thinking boy if he can just keep making pars minus two is going to be a spot you know he’s going to be in the top five or six by the time the end of the day is well then hole one came he got in a little bit of trouble he made a bogey then he made a a bogey on number four he got caught in the rough and you know sort of missed the shot hole six he actually made a miracle putt to save a bogey i mean it probably should have been a double bogey and at that point he’s over par hole seven another bogey and then came a disaster on on hole uh eight where you know the the long par three where he you know got into the sand and then he tried to get out of the sand and it took him two two swings so I mean I think at the end of the day you know he looked at it he’s plus four i’m looking actually right here at the monitor Scotty Sheffler is struggling on whatever hole he’s at he’s struggling he’s all over the place um so it looks like he’s going to go further uh further in the hole he’s plus one he’s going to be at least plus two at the end of this hole so uh that’s really you know what what happened here today sunjm uh let’s see i think I think they’re looking for right now to see if uh he can he can somehow salvage a par here and if he can salvage a par then of course he’ll maintain a lead if not he’ll fall back into a tie with uh with respect to um JJ Spawn so um we’ll see there comes a nice shot from Sheffler didn’t get it quite to the hole so it looks like he’s going to take a bogey on this hole um and that’ll put him at plus two it’s interesting to Shamboo plus three rory plus four Scotty Shaffler plus three um you know now comes Sunjm who’s got a really difficult putt um and uh it looks like he’s going to take a uh bogey on this hole so he’ll be back to uh minus four um so that’s that anyway um you know it’s interesting what has happened here today is we were told all week that it’s going to be really difficult for anybody to be under par and quite frankly I mean we’ve got a long way to go and if it stays dry the next three days yeah it probably is going to be very difficult for guys to be under par because the reality is um you know it’s going to get firmer it’s going to get faster it’s going to be harder to control the ball i was on one hole i’m trying to think of what hole it was watching a guy so it would have been let’s see 12 12 guys approach shot on 12 that he hit a really really good approach shot and it must have ruled 12 13 feet past the hole um that’s only going to get worse as the as the week goes on uh you know so I think sometimes we look at the first day of the tournament and there’s some people that think well you know what you have a chance to win it on the first day you don’t you have a chance to lose it on the first day though shane Lowry has lost it i mean he’s going to have to scramble to make the cut now if you think about it i mean he’s at plus nine uh the good news for him is there’s a whole lot of guys that are behind him um you know that that shot even worse than that um and I think if I’m not mistaken uh let’s see the kid from wait I think the kid from Pittsburgh I think he’s plus 10 if I’m not mistaken here let me look at this either way I mean if you’re that far down after a day one you’ve got a big hole to get out of i mean right now the cut probably would be somewhere around four so you’ve got to play five under just to have a chance to get a cut and that’s assuming that’s assuming that there’s nobody else that goes lower that pushes the cut line even a little bit lower so I I think to me when I look at uh today what happened out here at Oakmont it’s amazing uh how difficult the course really is and I think really what I saw today is that it probably is as difficult as you think it is even though a couple of guys went low couple guys went low and that’s great you know uh but I think the longer it goes the more difficult it is the tougher it’s going to be for guys to go low i almost don’t even I almost don’t even uh think that it’s reality in some ways to believe that we’re going to have five six seven guys under par at the end of the week i mean right now there’s a bunch of guys uh but I think tomorrow you’ll probably see some guys come back to earth um I think JJ Spawn is an interesting story i know you know our Jason Mackey wrote about him he seems to be a guy that I would classify almost as a nobody from nowhere um JJ Spawn one of the most interesting things that he said to me was or he didn’t say to me but he said to the media was “You know what i never played here before.” And he said “That probably freed me up i just took what the course gave me in other words he hadn’t really played here before so he wasn’t like some of these other guys who seem to be psyching themselves out that’s the good news for him and it just basically says um you know hey he said it’s hard not to hear the noise it’s hard not to hear everybody talking about how difficult this is it’s hard not to see that or hear that but the reality is at the end of the day you know what i didn’t think about it i wasn’t afraid of it i wasn’t afraid of any of this stuff because I had never played here i have no reference point so I was kind of free to just do what I do and I think that’s you know really to me what was um the most you know telling thing about what he said was that the best thing he could do was just say “Hey I don’t even know what I’m doing so I’m okay.” And I think that’s where he’s at right now at least uh when it comes to But now tomorrow again and I don’t think people fully understand this but tomorrow it changes because tomorrow he’s going to take the course as one of the leaders and now there’s a little pressure on him now there’s a little bit of pressure on him so uh you know this is really uh kind of a neat experience very expensive really is so you know but my point is it’s pretty expensive and if you you know come out here um it’s pretty neat though you know tickets obviously cost a lot of money i’m fortunate to have a press pass but regardless uh to me I look at it like this is one of those Dean experiences if you’re you know a golfer for instance if you’re into golf if you you love watching golf if you are somebody who you know enjoys the the aspects of golf like um uh uh you know the psychological warfare if you like watching the the best of the best play yeah this is a really neat experience but if you don’t you know you wouldn’t come here you know obviously that’s one of those things where I’m just telling you um if you have an opportunity to come out here you can see some of the best and Brooks Keepa just blew a a putt so he’s back to heaven um that’s not good um but again it’s it’s obviously very difficult course for these guys even though some of them are going low even though some of them are going low and so you know if you think about it um it’s one of those things where they want the course to be difficult they want it to be a difficult test for everybody they want it to be one of these things where everybody feels the heat when they’re playing and that’s what they’re going to do so to me um it’s pretty cool to watch some of the best players in the world like Scotty Sheffler who was just all over the last hole watching these guys really struggle around a little bit because it makes you it reminds you how hard the go the game is you know when you play the game you sometimes I think you know you don’t fully appreciate just how tough golf is can’t fully appreciate it if you don’t play it but even if you play it sometimes you know if if it’s almost like too easy and you’re just kind of in a place where you you you say to yourself well you know what just go out here and hit the ball well these guys are out here they’re the best in the world they’re trying to hit the ball around and honestly um you see that the course in many ways is winning this weekend even though a few of these guys uh really did a good job of sort of taming the course in some ways um you know what it’s it’s not as easy as you think it is and so I think that we get to a point where we get to Sunday and all of a sudden there is you know a little bit more pressure on it and then you get to see really which guys crack and which guys don’t so um at the end of the day that’s honestly where I’m at with this uh switching gears interestingly enough by the way the game’s always on at Archie get down to Archie’s archie’s home of 87 Wings Monday through Thursday home of the Pulse Ice Grill cheese sandwich so get down to Archie and say hello when you’re there um switching gears let’s go to the Steelers mike Tomlin let the cat out of the bag and that cat is basically Well guess what we might we might not have TJ Watt in in training camp we might not do that he might not be here he might be still holding up and I know that there’s a lot of people who would say well you know it doesn’t matter it really doesn’t but I do find I do find it easy and and um um I do find it very very fascinating um that it’s one of those things where I think that last year that wasn’t the case and it was a hold in not a hold out it was a hold in he was showing up right now he’s not showing up um and I think that’s the key like if he’s not showing up it tells me the Steelers are probably not close to what he’s thinking about in terms of his contract that’s what it tells me and um it’s one of those things where I don’t I don’t know that it’s necessarily going to be resolved as easy as some people think unless unless we get to a point where um you know it’s one of those things where um we get to a point where he might have to give in a little bit and I think that’s the key if he really wants to be a Steeler if he really wants to be here if he really wants to win here if he really wants to be that you know one helmet guy and all that other crap we hear about you know what tj Watt might have to take a little less money and the reality is again you know going back to that uh that that uh that line about Ralph Ker we can finish last with you we can finish last without you we can win we can lose playoff games with you we can lose them without you and I think one of the things that Steeler fans need to come to grips with when it comes to this group of Steelers and I mean this in all sincerity and I don’t mean it in a mean way um I just think that you don’t realize this isn’t the big bad Steelers anymore this isn’t the team that’s got the pedigree that everybody’s afraid of anymore this isn’t the team that people are saying “Oh wow you know boy we got to play the big bad Steelers.” No they haven’t won a playoff game in eight seasons there are two guys Cam Hayward and Chris Boswell the kicker the only two guys on the whole entire roster that have ever experienced a winning playoff game in a Steelers uniform two guys and one of them is a kicker and TJ ain’t one of them and quite frankly it’s not TJ Watt’s fault completely that the Steelers have lost in these playoff games but he could show up he could do more than a flatline 000000 all the way across the stat sheet against the Bills last year i mean quite frankly I think he’s played in five playoff games if you take away a strip sack at the start of the Kansas City game which they ended up losing by 100 points anyway but he had a strip strip strip sack score in that game guess what you take that away that’s basically his entire resume for the playoffs is one play so to me you know I get it one helmet guy we wanted to be a Steeler for life i want to be a Steeler for life i want to be here yada yada okay show us show us that’s just the bottom line it’s one of those things where I really believe that TJ Watt might have to take a little bit less money and I don’t know that he wants to i think he looks at Miles Garrett’s contract and listen here’s the other thing that’s funny you know Micah Parsons uh I think one of the Bosa guys uh there’s like a uh the the the kid from uh the Bengals what’s his name trey Hendrickson or whatever his name is there’s a bunch of these rush ends that are all angling for a deal right now and I think they’re all waiting for one of the other guys to go get a deal so they can say “This is this is what I want this is what Miles Garrett got this is what this guy got this is not what I want.” Um so who’s going to get the deal first it’s interesting to see but all I’m telling you is I think that TJ Watt can show us a whole lot about how much he wants to be a Steeler right how much he wants to be a Steeler by going out and signing a deal for a reasonable number that’s just you know what that’s how you show me that you want to be a Steeler and I’m not saying that you know don’t get every Listen I’m not one of these guys that think that athletes shouldn’t take every dime they can get and they shouldn’t make every dime i get it but on some levels if you’re telling me that winning matters and that winning is the only thing that matters to you and that all you care about is winning in a Steelers uniform and and you want to be a one helmet guy okay well show us you don’t need to get 130 million or what did Miles Garrett get 124 million guaranteed so TJ Watt’s got to get 125 right well you don’t need you don’t need to show us take 110 take you know you can still take the the the full price of the contract but the guaranteed money make it 110 show us that you really wanted to be a Steeler because you settled for 110 million well Paul would you would you Well here’s the thing i wouldn’t be out there telling everybody I want to be a Steeler i want to be a Steeler for life i wouldn’t be telling people that i would be saying I want to get paid in full and if you have the leverage to get paid in full well then you can go do that but to me the reality is and everything you know when we we look at all this stuff the reality is TJ Watt has a lot to prove i laughed at the Browns when they gave Miles Garrett all that money because I think it’s I think it’s a joke i I I I was one of the few people in town who was on the air saying basically you know the uh the Steelers should not give Watt the extension they gave him that you know has him here right i mean honestly that’s where I’m at and now I’m here saying that the Steelers should basically not uh you know basically not cave and see if they can get you know some sort of concession or whatever from TJ Watt you want to be a Steeler scotty Sheffller just airmeled another putt right past the hole so it looks like he’s going to lose another strike um you know I’m just telling you it looks to me like we are sitting here um you know and and uh it’s just one of those things where I just feel like um the Steelers if if you’re somebody that’s telling me and I’m the Steelers you’re telling me you want to be a Steeler for life then guess what if you want to be a Steeler for life here’s what we’re going to offer you here’s what we’re going to offer you and we’ll go from there and you can take that and and uh sort of take it to the bank if you want to say that way um anyway switching gears uh the Pirates have put themselves back into at least a little bit of a good groove and rhythm if I’m not mistaken if my math is correct Donnie Kelly is one game over 500 and he is uh uh boy Sunjay Him took the lead and now he’s just blowing it um he’s all over the place right now but anyway um you know the Pirates they’re the the biggest thing with them is they’re pitching really well recently they’re pitching really well and that to me is you know going to s be sustainable for them continue to pitch well continue to play well continue to you know uh uh get timely hits when you need them but their pitching has been really really good quite frankly you look at a guy like um Andrew Heeney he’s been so much better than anybody could think that he was going to be but he’s a guy you got to trade mitch Keller guy you got to trade this this season is lost i mean they have to play like six or seven or eight games over 500 the rest of the way just to get to 500 they’re not doing that so trade Keller trade Heeney as good as he’s been right i would try to trade Dennis Santana maybe David Bednar there’s a lot of guys that I would trade and just kind of basically really rebuild period i know I know people don’t want to hear that but to me the first thing you got to do is fire your general manager and do a rebuild that really is to me uh what needs to happen anyway uh I will be back here tomorrow at Oakmont Country Club we will talk more Steelers we’ll get you ready for the weekend we’ll look at what’s going on in the golf pirates are playing a big series in in uh uh in Chicago and the next uh the other thing we have going for us is uh some Penguins talk which I’m going to try and hook up tomorrow we’ll do that till then enjoy your day let’s try this again until then enjoy your day [Music] thank you for checking out this content from Postgazette Sports if you watch this video on YouTube please like the video and subscribe to our channel for all the sports coverage that Postgazette has to offer visit post-gazette.com [Music]