KEY POINTS:
Phil Mickelson was cut, even Tiger Woods was bruised and several other of the world's leading golfers were assaulted by the brutal Oakmont course yesterday - including England's Justin Rose who literally ended up with a bloody nose at the US Open yesterday.
Angel Cabrera of Argentina had
the lead after the second round when first-round leader, England's Nick Dougherty, stumbled at Oakmont.
He wasn't the only one. Joining Mickelson as past major winners axed yesterday were Justin Leonard, Shaun Micheel, Retief Goosen and Steve Elkington, while such form horses as Stewart Cink, Trevor Immelman, Padraig Harrington, Sean O'Hair, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott and several others also failed to make the cut.
Woods was relieved to keep double-bogeys off his card after battling to a four-over-par 74 and a five-over-par total of 145 and immediately warned that, unless the club greens were watered, more humbling of the stars was imminent.
"It was playing really hard out there," twice champion Woods said. "The greens got really quick and it was hard to try and place the ball under the hole."
Putting on Oakmont's infamous sloping greens often became a lottery, Woods said. Time and time again, an enthusiastic cheer for a putt or chip creeping gently up to the hole would give way to a groan as the missile took on a new lease of life. Again, there were endless two-to-three-footers which would swing round the edge of the cup to leave another putt of much the same distance.
"I probably had three putts today where I felt I could be aggressive and I made two of them," he added. "It's just so hard out there and the pins were a little more difficult than the previous day. They weren't flat, they were just on some ridges and all of a sudden you have a good putt that goes five, six feet by.
"Good shots are not going to be totally rewarded and bad shots are going to be penalised. You know that and that's the way it should be. But if they don't water the golf course, it's going to be a lot more difficult. It's going to be a test for all of us.
"This is the US Open, it's going to be tough and you've got to grind away," he said. "That's the fun part of it, it's so different than any other tournament we play in."
England's Paul Casey set a rip-roaring 66, the best of the day, alongside his opening 77. "I've had some good rounds in my time but this was the best of them," he acknowledged.
From being in grave danger of missing the cut, Casey played his way back into the championship. To put it another way, he had risen from 104th in the field to 16th.
As he approached the final green, he was conscious of the number of afternoon starters who had stopped playing in order to watch him finish. The moment he had played his little chip from the right edge, the congratulations started. Dougherty, who was about to head for the first tee, gave him the thumbs up.
Colin Montgomerie and Chris DiMarco, for their part, both gave an exasperated shrug of the shoulders as if to say, "How can you shoot a score like that in these conditions?"
Rose, meanwhile, had two three-putts in his first four holes and was three-over after five. In his case, though, he had rather more to contend with than the greens. He was suffering from a nose bleed for which the medical people eventually came to his aid with some cotton wool. The latter served to stem the loss of shots as much as the blood.
After holing an eight-footer at the sixth to get back on an even keel, Rose never dropped another shot in one more round to suggest that he has what it takes to be a major player. He returned his second 71 in a row to be in a tie for third.
Cabrera leads on 140, even par - one shot ahead of big-hitting Bubba Watson (USA) with Stephen Ames (Canada), Aaron Baddeley (Australia), Niclas Fasth (Sweden) and Rose (England) tied for third on 142.
That is to say, Cabrera led but, with the leaderboard changing with every hole as the contenders struggled, there was no clear indication of a possible winner.
The difficulty was personified by the marquee grouping of world number two Phil Mickelson, the third-ranked Jim Furyk and number four Adam Scott.
Mickelson shot a seven-over 77 for an 11-over tally of 151 and was cut. So was the talented Scott while Furyk dropped out of the leading bunch to equal 19th after a five-over-par 75.
