Masters champion and world No.2 Jordan Spieth is making his move at the US Open, surging to the lead early in the second round at Chambers Bay.
Spieth reeled off four birdies in his opening eight holes to jump to the outright lead but handed it back with a double bogey as he made the turn.
The 21-year-old remained right amongst it at four-under for the week, just one shot worse than overnight leaders Dustin Johnson and Henrik Stenson who play in the afternoon wave.
Spieth opened with an eight-foot birdie putt on the 10th hole and after missing a two-foot birdie chance on the 12th, found his groove.
He made a 15-foot birdie at 14 and then joined a share of the lead at five-under with a 23-foot birdie at 15.
A brilliant par save on the 16th was followed by a crowd-rousing 10-foot birdie on 17 to be up by one before a mini disaster on the 18th.
His drive went into the sand and his attempted recovery caught the lip and went into deep rough prompting Spieth to call his strategy into question.
“This is the dumbest hole I’ve ever played in my life,” he said after the second shot.
His third found a greenside bunker and he was unable to get up and down, taking a double-bogey six.
Jason Day slipped back slightly to one under on the week after a one-over opening nine on Friday.
Playing with Spieth Day, had two bogeys and just one birdie on the back side of the course to be tied 16th and four off the pace.
The Queenslander made plenty of nice par saves but missed a 10-foot birdie chance on 15 to keep pace with Spieth and then made bogey on 18 despite being dead centre of the fairway from the tee.
Former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy was struggling to back up his one-under-69 from round one, three-over on his round through 12 holes to be two-over and on the current cut line.
Rookie Cameron Smith and former Masters winner Adam Scott will begin round two at even par later in the day and Marcus Fraser begins at one-over.
Marc Leishman is having a round to forget, seven over through 11 holes to drop to 10-over. H
e’s still ahead of former world No.1 Tiger Woods who has backed up his miserable 80 to be one over through eight holes, 11 over overall.
