SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — Dustin Johnson was one shot out of the lead Friday in the U.S. Open as he walked onto the tee on the par-3 11th, looking like the major contender he once was instead of someone who had been MIA on golf’s biggest stages since leaving for LIV Golf.And then it all changed in a New York minute.Four holes later, he was 11 shots behind and scrambling just to make it to the weekend at Shinnecock Hills.“Just rocks,” Johnson said.It was a little more than pebbles in the sand that caused this stunning meltdown in the second round, but it left him a little dazed and more than a little frustrated.His mishaps started on the 11th when a gust knocked down his tee shot and it wound up in the right bunker. The next shot came out soft, rolled back down the false front into another bunker, and he failed to get up-and-down, making double bogey.
“Where I was standing it felt firm, but it came out soft,” he said of the first sand shot. “These bunkers are very difficult — or at least I’m having a hard time with it.”Two soft bogeys followed, one of them on the 13th hole when he had a lob wedge from a 117 yards that went so far it landed on the slope at the back of the green. His pitch went past the pin and off the green and he had to scramble from there.
