Rory fires after bizarre fan act; villain\u2019s stunner as Open chaos ends in brutal Aussie blow<\/a><\/p>\nWyndham Clark celebrates after a birdie on the 12th hole during the second round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.Source: AP<\/p>\n
Clark, a PGA Tour winner last month in Texas, sank a five-foot birdie putt at the 12th and added a birdie putt from just beyond 28 feet at 13 to reach seven-under.<\/p>\n
Clark rescued par from the right rough at 14 and left rough at 15 but found two fairway bunkers on the way to a bogey at the par-five 16th before closing with his best putt to boost his lead.<\/p>\n
The day\u2019s biggest talking point, however, has been the rare penalty handed to LIV Golf star Joaquin Niemann.<\/p>\n
The Chilean was handed a two-shot penalty from an incident on Thursday in which he threw his club.<\/p>\n
According to The Athletic\u2019s Gabby Herzig, Niemann threw an iron from the rough a whopping 50 yards while carding an 11 on the sixth hole. <\/p>\n
\u201cI hit it two times out of bounds on the right, two bad swings,\u201d Niemann explained before his second round. \u201cThen, yeah, [I] got pretty frustrated. I\u2019m not someone that like to be in that behavior. I\u2019m the first one to judge myself when I don\u2019t behave on the golf course.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that was a misbehave [on] my part. I felt like a little bit extra penalized with a two-shot penalty, but I think it is what it is. I think I\u2019m going to learn from it. It definitely kind of helped me a little bit to have a better round today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niemann then went out and shot five-under in his second round to pull himself within the cut line by one shot. <\/p>\n
England\u2019s Fitzpatrick fired a 70 to stand on 137. The 2022 US Open winner followed 10 pars with bogeys at 11, on a five-foot par putt miss, and 12, when he hit a cart path on his second shot.<\/p>\n
He then birdied the par-five 16th from just inside 10 feet and sank a 13-foot birdie putt at 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo in the last three always nice, especially at a US Open,\u201d Fitzpatrick said. \u201cDidn\u2019t really feel like I made too much up until those two holes really. Struggled a little bit off the tee on the back nine, but overall scrambled incredibly well to be where I am.\u201d <\/p>\n
Two-time major winner Schauffele, a back-nine starter, birdied three of his last four holes before the turn and sandwiched birdies at the fourth and sixth around his lone bogey.<\/p>\n
Two-time major winner Morikawa made five birdies in his first 10 holes in shooting a 65. The American had a tap-in birdie at 15 and sank an eight-foot birdie putt at 16 but found a bunker at the par-three 17th and made bogey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI chipped it a lot better,\u201d said Morikawa. That\u2019s the difference of kicking yourself out of a tournament, keeping yourself in it. Got off to a good start, hit a couple of good iron shots, but made the up-and-downs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spectator picks up McIlroy’s shank! | 00:26<\/p>\n
– McIlroy out late –<\/p>\n
Other rivals, meanwhile, fell by the wayside.<\/p>\n
Two-time major winner Dustin Johnson pulled within a stroke with a birdie on 10 only to double bogey the par-three 11th and bogey 12 and 13 on his way to a 77 to finish 10 adrift on 143.<\/p>\n
Fellow American Gary Woodland, the 2019 US Open winner, began with a birdie to reach four-under but made bogeys on four of the next six holes and shot 73 to stand on 140.<\/p>\n
Justin Thomas, a two-time winner of the PGA Championship, went three-under on the back nine, made bogeys at the first and third holes but closed with a three-foot birdie putt at nine to shoot 68 and stand on 139.<\/p>\n
Six-time major winner Rory McIlroy, the world number two from Northern Ireland, was set for a late start after opening on 69.<\/p>\n
Top-ranked Scottie Scheffler, who would complete a career Grand Slam with a victory this week, opened on two-over and goes off late as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wyndham Clark fended off charges by fellow major winners Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick and Collin Morikawa to seize…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-747421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n