2008 U.S. Open (golf)

Field

• Colt Knost forfeited his exemption by turning professional.

• Shaun Micheel withdrew prior to the tournament.

• Brett Wetterich withdrew prior to the tournament.

• Craig Parry and David Smail were not ranked in the top 75.

• Sean O'Hair withdrew prior to the tournament.

• Japan: Artemio Murakami, Craig Parry
• England: Phillip Archer, Robert Dinwiddie, Johan Edfors, Ross Fisher, Alastair Forsyth, Thomas Levet, Ross McGowan
• United States

• Rickie Fowler – replaced Shaun Micheel
• Gary Wolstenholme – replaced Sean O'Hair
• Andrew Svoboda – replaced Brett Wetterich

Course layout

Round summaries

First round

Place	Player	Score	To par
T1	Second round Friday, June 13, 2008 The first round co-leaders both fell well down the leaderboard: Justin Hicks shot an 80 to drop to a tie for 49th and Kevin Streelman shot 77 to drop to tied for 22nd. Stuart Appleby carded a 70 to take the lead at 139, one stroke ahead of Robert Karlsson, Mediate, and Woods. Woods shot a 30 on the front nine, one stroke more than the U.S. Open record for nine holes set by Vijay Singh in 2003. Singh made his 14th consecutive cut at the U.S. Open, the longest current streak. Miguel Ángel Jiménez shot the low round of the day −5 and moved into a tie for 5th. The cut was at +7, 10 strokes from the leader, and 80 players made the cut. Defending champion Cabrera shot a 76 for at total of 155 to miss the cut by six shots. Ian Poulter withdrew with a wrist injury after playing 15 holes. Three amateurs made the cut: Derek Fathauer, Michael Thompson, and Rickie Fowler. In all, 19 players shot sub-par second rounds. The scoring average was 74.96 for round two and 75.27 overall. Place Player Score To par 1 Third round Saturday, June 14, 2008 Overnight leader Stuart Appleby shot 79 to slip back to T-19 at 218, while playing partner Rocco Mediate shot 72 to finish two strokes behind at 212. Many of the leaders struggled on day three. Karlsson and Jiménez dropped back to 215, Davis Love III to 4 over-par and D. J. Trahan to 1 over-par. Lee Westwood finished at 211 after a round of 70, the only one to shoot par or better in all three rounds. Woods, despite struggling with his knee injury, dazzled on the back nine with some improbable shots, resulting in two eagles on the 13th and 18th and a chip-in birdie from the rough on the 17th to take the 54-hole lead at 210, a stroke ahead of Westwood. Brandt Snedeker shot the low round of the day at 68. In total, 11 players shot sub-par rounds and the scoring average for the round was 74.36 and 75.08 overall. Place Player Score To par 1 Final round Sunday, June 15, 2008 Woods had previously won each of the thirteen major championships in which he entered the final round with at least a share of the lead, and his fourteenth was no different. He lost his lead on the first hole, double-bogeying the hole for the third time in the tournament, and followed that with a bogey on the second, but regained two of the shots with birdies on 9 and 11. He also bogeyed 13, the same hole on which he had sunk an eagle putt the previous day. Mediate had put together a solid round, only scoring one bogey over the final 13 holes. However, he barely missed a birdie putt on 17 and hit a wedge too strong on 18; his pars on the two final holes kept both Woods and his playing partner Westwood in contention. Both came to the par-5 final hole one shot behind Mediate, who was in the clubhouse at 283. Woods and Westwood both hit their drives into bunkers and had to lay up. Woods' second shot went into the rough; Westwood laid up in the fairway. Both reached the green with their third shots, leaving them with birdie putts to force an 18-hole playoff with Mediate. Westwood's putt, which had a severe break to the right, was not successful. Woods' putt was closer at, with a much less severe break; his putt lipped the hole before dropping and putting him in the playoff. Both Woods and Mediate became the first to finish under par at the U.S. Open since 2004. Heath Slocum shot the low round of the day at 65. In total, 12 players shot sub-par rounds and the scoring average for the round was 72.87 and 74.71 overall. Place Player Score To par Money T1 Scorecard Final round Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Par 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 3 5 4 3 4 5 4 4 3 4 5 Playoff Monday, June 16, 2008 The 18-hole playoff was the first playoff for the U.S. Open since 2001. After trading the lead three times on the front nine, Woods built a three stroke lead through ten holes. Mediate rallied on the back nine with three consecutive birdies which gave him a one stroke lead heading to the 18th hole. Like the day before, Woods birdied to tie Mediate and forced the playoff into sudden-death, the third in U.S. Open history. The sudden-death playoff started and ended at the par-4 7th hole; Woods left his birdie putt inches short and tapped in, while Mediate's tee shot found the left fairway bunker and his putt to save par missed right. Place Player Score To par Sudden death Money 1 Woods' injury Two months earlier on April 15, Woods had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. During his rehab, Woods sustained a double stress fracture of his left tibia. Throughout the tournament it was clear Woods was in pain, and the general feeling was that he was just returning from the initial surgery too soon. He did not reveal the news about the fracture until Wednesday, two days after the Monday He had surgery to repair his anterior cruciate ligament and needed time to rehab that and the stress fracture, and announced on his website that he would miss the remainder of the 2008 season.