A Typical US Open After All

After all the questions we had about Chambers Bay and its unusual approach to US Open golf, two rounds have shown us that it will still give us what we expect from a US Open.

There are the usual complaints about some aspect of the course. In this case, it's the fescue-poa greens and the unusual "changing pars" of holes 1 and 18.

After Round 2 the leading score is -5, which just happens to be the same score that led after Round 1. That's pretty typical US Open scoring, no matter where you play. (For those of you who don't know, except for 2 of the previous 114 US Opens, a final score of -8 was enough to get you into a playoff if you didn't win outright. The 2 exceptions? Tiger Woods in 2000 won with -12 and Rory McIlroy in 2011 won with -16.)

Some of the favorites have slammed their trunks -- for me, Rickie Fowler is the most notable because he was my favorite to win -- and the defending US Open champ didn't make the cut. That happens more often than you might think. It's hard to defend on a different, and sometimes dramatically different course each year.

Some expected contenders barely made the cut but are still not out of it -- Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott, to name a few. The leaders are only 9 shots ahead of those who made it on the number, and we've already seen a 65 (-5), a couple of 66s and a number of 67s. Guys like Phil and Company are entirely capable of posting a couple of those scores this weekend and getting themselves right back into the mix.

Likewise, we have several unexpected names in that mix like Branden Grace, Joost Luiten and Tony Finau, along with some of the usual suspects who frequently pop up -- Dustin Johnson and Jason Day, for example -- and one major winner, in this case Jordan Spieth.

And remember this picture from the last Ryder Cup?



Jordan and his teammate Patrick Reed have both shot their best-ever US Open scores so far and will be the very TV-friendly final pairing in today's penultimate round.

So when it's all said and done, it appears that blatantly atypical Chambers Bay is going to host a fairly typical US Open after all. All it needs is a good battle down the stretch...

But that's the players' responsibility, isn't it?