The Major championships in golf are supposed to be tough tests of endurance, where grown men are reduced to having tears well up in their eyes and where self-pity is often acceptable. Martin Kaymer has shown scant regard for such matters with an imperious display over the opening two rounds of this 114th US Open on Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina's sand belt.
In adding a second successive 65, this one bogey-free, Kaymer reached the midpoint of the championship with a record 36-holes aggregate of 130, 10-under-par. The previous record of 131 was set by Rory McIlroy, en route to his breakthrough Major success at Congressional in 2011.
Kaymer was immune from the eccentricities and difficulties which afflicted others. Like what happened to Hunter Mahan and Jamie Donaldson, who accidentally played each other’s balls from the middle of the 18th fairway as if out for a carefree social fourball.
“It was one of those freak things that can happen,” observed Donaldson of the incident, which resulted in two shot penalties for each of them. Both would miss the cut, Mahan by just one stroke.
Others had less reason to forgive and forget. Jeff Maggert, for one, had the misfortune to run up a quintuple bogey 10 on one hole, the Par 5 fifth.
And Shane Lowry, with the whiff of making it through to the weekend, suffered a cruel lesson coming home in 39 strokes with a double bogey-par-bogey finish that saw him sign for successive 73s, for 146, a shot too many.
Rory McIlroy, though, manoeuvred his way in an upwardly mobile way. The 25-year-old from Holywood shot a second round 68 for 139, one-under-par, which, if not exactly causing Kaymer a sleepless night, at least reminded the leader that the chase is on heading into the weekend.
Grand designs
Graeme McDowell had a 74 for 142, two-over, while Phil Mickelson – who came in with grand designs on pursuing his quest for the missing link in a career Grand Slam – reneged on using the claw grip in putting but struggled to a 73 for 143, three-over.
Kaymer, among those in the early wave of the second round, had listened to the thunderstorms of Thursday night and allowed himself a smile. It meant that the sting was again taken out of the course. “You could still be aggressive, perfect greens,” observed the one-time world number one, who went out and took full advantage of the rather benign set-up.
Even with pins tucked away, Kaymer invariably found a way to get the ball into the hole in as few strokes as possible. An example of his majesty was shown on the Par 4 fourth hole where, with 211 yards to a seemingly impossible pin placement, he drew his approach to 12 feet and rolled in the birdie putt. “I don’t know what to say. It’s just very, very solid. It gets boring the words that I use, but I mean there’s not much to say. It’s just good right now the way I play golf,” said Kaymer in a matter-of-fact way.
Boring? Not really. Clinical and machine-like, maybe. But to roll in five birdies without a single bogey on his card, as he did, was close to golfing perfection. “Obviously the record shows that it’s very rare that somebody shoots 10-under par after two rounds, and it just happened in my case now. But I didn’t expect it,” he admitted.
Of assuming the role of attempting to win wire-to-wire and with such a lead on his pursuers, Kaymer said: “You just want to keep going, you want to keep playing. You want to challenge yourself. If you can hit or if you can stay aggressive and hit the right shots, and that’s quite nice that it’s a battle against yourself. Obviously, there are a lot of guys who want to win the golf tournament, but I can’t do anything about that, that they make birdies, eagles, bogeys, whatever.
Enjoyable
"But I can change my mindset, I can challenge myself how to play the golf course and that keeps me busy. I look at the scoreboards, it's enjoyable.
“To see what’s going on, to watch yourself, how you react, if you’re leading by five, by six, now I’m leading by eight, but by the end of the day maybe I lead only by two or three or maybe we’re tied or something. I don’t know, but it’s quite nice to play golf that way.”
Of course, it wasn't all about Kaymer. In an ironic kind of way, Dustin Johnson – who was the fall guy back in 2010 when Kaymer made his breakthrough Major in the US PGA at Kiawah Island – again nudged into the frame, shooting back-to-back 69s to lurk, albeit at a distance, whilst another former PGA champion Keegan Bradley was also on the 138 mark.
Adam Scott, the world number one, recovered from a disappointing opening round 73 to card a 67 that encouraged last year's Masters champion. "It's great golf for Martin, for him to come out and back it up is super. If he does it for two more days, then we're all playing for second spot. But we all know that US Opens get very difficult and, if I can somehow just put together two really good rounds, maybe slowly but surely, I'll creep my way up," said the Australian.
