Fowler Leads After Opening Day In U.S. Open, Blimp Crashes

By ESPN

Jason Day stood over a 7-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole on Thursday, visualizing his line for what felt like five minutes. He took a handful of practice strokes, then finally sent his ball trickling toward the hole. It delicately dropped into the cup, but the gallery barely clapped. It was eerily quiet around the green.

The expression on Day's face -- disgust -- didn't change. It's not every week you see one of the world's best players needing to birdie 18 to avoid signing for an 80, but that's what happened in the first round of the U.S. Open. Day was fortunate to walk off with a 79 considering how poorly he was hitting it much of the day. Only four players in the field posted a worse score. It was the first time in his career that Day has ever made two triple-bogeys in one round.

"I just played bad golf, man," Day said. "I can't put it any other way. It's not like I gave up. I actually gave it 100 percent all the way through the end, and I shot 79."

He wasn't alone, though. The top five players in the world rankings -- Day, +7; Dustin Johnson +4; Rory McIlroy, +6; Jordan Spieth +1; Hideki Matsuyama, +2 -- were a combined 19-strokes over par in Round 1. And while this tournament typically bares its teeth and makes the most talented players on the planet look frustrated and mortal, Erin Hills, weirdly, played relatively easy for much of the field.

On Thursday, 44 players broke par, erasing the previous first-round record of 39, set at Medinah in 1990. Rickie Fowler tied a U.S. Open first-round record by shooting a 7-under 65, but the men who are usually right there with him looked like they were playing a different golf course. Day and McIlroy couldn't hit fairways, Spieth and Johnson weren't making putts, Day's short game was a dumpster fire (he flubbed several chips), and Matsuyama couldn't hit greens. It was surreal to watch. As many amateurs (Scott Scheffler; Cameron Champ) finished under par as top-10 players in the world (Fowler; Sergio Garcia).

Johnson, the defending U.S. Open champ, looked as mortal as he has looked in a long time, hitting just 11 of 18 greens. He played particularly sloppy on the 14th hole, where he hit iron off the tee, then tried to lay up and, from the fairway, hooked it into the fescue, leading to a double bogey.

"Where I went wrong is, I layed up in the hay, that's where it went wrong," Johnson joked. "And then I got on the green and three-putted for double bogey. It was a great hole I played there."

McIlroy didn't fare much better off the tee. One of the world's best drivers couldn't keep the ball out of the fescue and had a two-way miss going with his new TaylorMade driver. "I don't think I hit a fairway [after] the 10th," said McIlroy, when asked what he thought caused his 6-over 78. "You can not play this golf course if you're out of position off the tee, and I wasn't in position. Obviously, I paid the price for it today."

McIlroy has never made a cut in a major after shooting 74 or higher in the opening round, meaning he's in danger of missing his third cut in the past five majors. "I feel like I'm capable, I just need to get the ball in the fairway," McIlroy said. "if I can get the ball in the fairway, I can give myself some looks at some birdies. That just wasn't the case today."

Hitting fairways doesn't necessarily cure everything though. Speith's 73 might have been the most confounding score of the day, considering he hit 13 of 14 fairways, in a performance he called "the best driving round that I've had maybe in my life."

But on the green, one of the world's best putters lost 1.46 strokes to the field, leaving him ranked 118th out of 156 players. It marked the fifth straight major in which Spieth has failed to break par in the opening round.

"I had 15 looks at birdie today and all of them were actually makeable putts and I only made one of them," Spieth said. "If I get that many looks, I normally shoot 8-under par, typically. So there's nothing for me to change other than dial things in on the greens."

Are any of them still in contention? It seems unlikely, although Spieth and Matsuyama have a better shot than Johnson, McIlroy and Day. The last U.S. Open winner who was 3-over or worse after the first round? Lee Janzen, who shot 73 in 1998 at The Olympic Club when it played as a Par 70. Before that, it was Raymond Floyd, who shot 75 at Shinnecock County Club in 1986.

All of two men in 30 years? That does not bode well.

Blimp Crashes, Burns Mile From U.S. Open

The pilot of a commercial blimp that plunged out of the sky and crashed and burst into flames late Thursday morning about a mile from the U.S. Open at Erin Hills was "alert and conscious" as he was flown by helicopter to the hospital, according to a law enforcement officer on the scene.

Paramedics were seen tending to the injured pilot before they wheeled the man into a waiting helicopter marked "Flight For Life." Authorities told reporters who arrived at the crash site that no one else was on board but the pilot. Patrick Walsh, CEO of AirSign, an advertising firm, identified the pilot to ESPN as Trevor Thompson. Walsh said the crash was due to "a catastrophic failure" of the skin near the top of the ship that led to depressurizing and loss of shape, and it then caught fire in the air.

Walsh called Thompson one of the most sought-after pilots of this type of airship in the United States, and he credited crew chief Matt Schmidt with saving his life. Schmidt told ESPN.com that he was the first to arrive at the crash scene and that he pulled Thompson away from the burning wreckage just before the blimp's propane tanks exploded.

"I heard him calling out for help when I got there," Schmidt told ESPN. "He was able to get out of the gondola and he was probably 5 to 10 feet away from [the blimp] trying to crawl away. I asked him if he could move, and he said he couldn't get up and walk. I pulled him as far away as I could and as fast as I could. I got 50 feet away before the first tank exploded, and then I pulled him about another 60 feet away before the second one exploded."

Schmidt said that Thompson suffered burns on his back and on the back of his neck and head. Schmidt said he was told by paramedics on the scene that the injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.

Early in the day, the blimp showed no signs of distress. At 10:35 a.m., AirSign tweeted an aerial shot of Erin Hills Golf Course, asking followers to tweet pictures of the ship, which was advertising for the PenFed Credit Union. But 30 minutes later, fans, players and caddies at Erin Hills were seen pointing to the sky as the blimp plunged beyond nearby trees and into a farmer's field off of Highway 83.

Golfer Jamie Lovemark was playing the front nine when he looked up and saw the blimp on fire. "I felt sick to my stomach," Lovemark said. "I had the shakes. I felt terrible for the people inside. It was a horrible sight."

Schmidt said Thompson was wearing a fire-resistant suit and that he rode the blimp to the ground.

"I ran as fast as I could through the tall grass to get to him," Schmidt said, "and I fell three or four times. ... I was worried when I got there because the flames were so bad and hot. I wasn't sure if he was still inside or if I'd be able get to him. The flames just kept getting worse."

Schmidt said Thompson did not know what caused the damage to the skin of the blimp. "[Thompson] was saying there were a couple of panels that gave way on the envelope [of the ship], causing the hot air to pour out," Schmidt said. "And once he realized that he shut off all the fuel and tightened his seatbelt and braced for impact as best he could."

Hunter Guetzke, a 16-year-old Erin resident, said he and his father were watching the blimp from their car when it fell from the sky.

"It basically just dropped straight to the ground, and once it was on the ground it exploded three times," Guetzke said. "When it hit the ground there were three fireballs and you could hear the explosion. ...It went from holy cow to, 'I can't believe this is happening,'" he said. "It goes from that's cool to something like, 'This is going to be bad.'"