From The U.S. Open - We Are Set Up For An Incredible Father’s Day Finish Headlined By Rickie Fowler’s Quest To Finally Hoist A Major Championship Trophy

MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images. Getty Images.

LOS ANGELES — It's been the strangest year-plus in golf, so let's keep the surreal theme going: Rickie Fowler co-leads a major championship after 54 holes. In 2023. After a two-year stretch when he could muster just 3 top 10s. After people like me wrote him off as the commercial golfer. After three days of a boutique U.S. Open in the shadows of Beverly Hills. 

Oh, and Rory McIlroy's one shot behind. The content gods have blessed us beyond belief. 

Fowler would've held the solo lead if not for a three-put at 18 that he'll have to all morning before a post-2 p.m. tee time on Sunday. He'll play for the second straight day alongside Wyndham Clark, whose ascent to the elite level feels more of a sure thing than ever. Clark bounced back from a bogey at 17 with a macho three-perfect-shot birdie at 18 after he punctuated his approach with a club twirl for the ages. The closing birdie got him to 10 under, and both he and Rickie are one ahead of McIlroy, who has put himself in position yet again to end his nine-year major drought. 

Here we go with the Hollywood metaphor. Pardon me, if you will, but the stars in in place for a fantastic ending to what's been a…different U.S. Open. When Fowler hooped a 69-footer for birdie at 13, you thought surely you'd get a weekend-at-a-major roar. Instead, polite applause. The USGA and Los Angeles Country Club limited GA ticket sales to just 20,000 per day, a historic low for modern majors. That, plus a routing that winds through a canyon, has produced a rather quiet weekend. The course has firmed up considerably since the record-scoring on Thursday, but the noise hasn't really picked up much. Matt Fitzpatrick, for one, is not too pleased. 

“Very poor,” is how he described the on-site atmosphere. “It’s disappointing on the USGA side. They want a great tournament—from what I’ve heard a lot of members bought tickets and that’s why there’s so many less people. Hopefully it’s not the same for other U.S. Opens going forward.”

The TV execs, however, would gladly sign up for this again. Two massive stars headlining the show in Fowler and McIlroy. 

"It's been such a long time since I've done it," McIlroy said, his last major coming at Royal Birkdale in 2014. "I'm going out there to try to execute a game plan, and I feel like over the last three days I've executed that game plan really, really well, and I just need to do that for one more day."

Lurking within striking distance is the world's top-ranked player: Scottie Scheffler, who holed out from 196 on 17 then birdied 18 to play the tricky final duo in 5 shots. They were averaging a combined 9. He picked up four shots on the field over those two holes alone, and that late flourish for a 68 has him just two back chasing his second major.

"I was fighting all day today, trying to just get myself back in position, starting the day six or seven shots back or whatever it was," Scheffler said. "Just trying to make some birdies and avoid the bogeys. I didn't do a great job of that for most of the day but I grinded it out pretty hard. I felt like today was one of the days where I got punished for my mistakes, whereas yesterday I felt like I wasn't getting punished at all. I was hitting it all over the map and getting some decent lies and figuring it out from there, and today it seemed like every time I got offline I was really fighting for par. And yeah, just fortunate to see that shot go in on 17 and then a nice birdie on 18 to kind of get myself back into it."

Clark could well play spoiler. It wouldn't be a massive surprise to anyone paying attention. With a tremendous, consistent year and a big-time victory last month at the Wells Fargo Championship, his confidence has never been higher. You need only to see how he played the 18th to believe he's a Ryder Cup player, a man fully capable of stealing a major championship from the superstars around him. Even if it came in the semi-dark. 

"It's crazy that we're finishing in the dark,” Clark told Golf Channel after the round. “Rickie and I were both a little bummed about it."

A trophy tomorrow, and all will be forgiven.

Download the Barstool Golf Time app now. Book the best tee times at the best prices all in one place. Leave course reviews. Redeem rewards for free Barstool Golf merch. Follow Barstool Golf Time on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook.