Little-Known Guys Are Taking a Starring Role in This U.S. Open

Friday morning it was MJ Daffue, Friday afternoon it was Joel Dahmen. And they can appreciate the unlikeliness of their positions at The Country Club.

MJ Daffue was the talk of The Country Club on Friday morning, taking a starring role ahead of the household names at the U.S. Open :: John David Mercer/USA Today

BROOKLINE, Mass. — If you turned on the U.S. Open midway through Friday morning only to realize you’d never heard of the guy in first place, don’t feel too bad. Neither had Dustin Johnson.

Some of MJ Daffue’s opponents cannot summon his name (pronounced Duffy). He doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. He did not even plan to try to qualify for this tournament until late May because he was more focused on earning his PGA Tour card. Daffue finished last year ranked No. 897 in the world. Consider that there are 450 players in the NBA.

“Nobody really knows me,” he told Golf Channel after his second-round 72 left him at 1 under par, within striking distance of the lead. “So going out there and scaring the big guys should be a lot of fun.”

There will be plenty of little guys alongside him. In many ways, this is the United States Golf Association’s dream leaderboard: Midway through Friday, the top 20 players consisted of four previous major winners and 12 players who had to endure qualifying tournaments just to be here. (Of those, three are alternates and one is an amateur.) Scottie Scheffler, the reigning Masters winner and World No. 1, was on there. So was Callum Tarren, a 31-year-old ranked No. 445 and trying to make his seventh career cut.

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“The PGA Tour is very deep and extremely talented,” said Scheffler. “You guys may be surprised to see certain people up on the leaderboard, but I think most of the guys out here aren't that surprised, because there's so many talented guys, especially when you're playing a golf course as difficult as this. If you're playing your best, you're going to be there at the top. No matter how good your career has been in the past or if you're just getting started, whatever it is, if you're playing good golf, you're going to get rewarded for it on a test like this.”

Brooks Koepka, who has won four majors, said after a 3-under 67 Friday left him at even par for the week, “I don’t come here hoping for second place,” and most of his fellow stars feel the same way. But 9,300 people tried to qualify for this tournament. Of the 156 who succeeded, Koepka has fewer peers than does Daffue, who said, “I don't think my goal is to win this week. My goal is just to be the best I can be, and if the best I can be and the best I can play is good enough for that, then I've achieved what I wanted to achieve.”

Joel Dahmen, who has one PGA Tour win, said his mentality was similar. He began his round Friday tied for first at 3 under par, ended it tied for first at 5 under and said he would allow himself to appreciate that. “Is it way cooler to finish in the lead on Sunday?” he said. “Yeah. Is it still cool as a kid who grew up in Clarkston, Washington, to be like, 'Man, he is leading the U.S. Open?' That's kind of a cool deal. For sure.”

That energy is a perfect fit for The Country Club, where Francis Ouimet grew up a 6-iron from the 17th fairway. In 1913, at 20 years old, he crossed the street to the club where he caddied and defeated two British professionals and major winners, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, in a playoff to become the first amateur to win the U.S. Open.

“What Ouimet did, it boils down to one statistic I heard a few weeks ago,” John Bodenhamer, who runs championships for the USGA, said on Wednesday. “The population of our country in 1913 in the United States, think about it, was a little more than half of what it is now. There were 350,000 golfers in our country. Two years after Ouimet won, there were over 2.1 million golfers in this country.

“What he did and what he spurred and being on the front page of sports pages all across the country changed the face of the game in this country. Gene Sarazen — I heard this story just this last week — was here and witnessed what Ouimet did, and it was almost like a four-minute mile moment: 'If Francis can do it, I can do it.' And he did later. It really opened up the floodgates later in really inspiring American golf.”

These days, there are more like 38 million American golfers, and not many of them would have been brave enough to hit the shot Daffue made on No. 14 on Friday after his drive landed on the deck of a hospitality area. Daffue motioned a bystander out of the way with a hearty, “I’m coming right over you, sir,” then cranked a 3-wood around a tree and past a fence. He made bogey, but said afterward, grinning, “I think it was an awesome shot.”

Current leader at the #USOpen MJ Daffue finds the stands on 14

Perfect time for a fairway wood off the deck pic.twitter.com/iD4lJmMa9J

— WATD Sports (@SEonWATD) June 17, 2022

He added, “Not a lot of people get to lead the U.S. Open by three shots. I just told myself, 'Enjoy it. You've done a lot of work. It's finally paying off.' Once again, we'll try our best the next two rounds, but whatever happens this week, you know, I've already done a lot of things here, and in the process I was able to entertain some people today, too. It's been good.”

Amid the chaos caused by the upstart Saudi Arabia–funded LIV golf tour, the endless discussions about who will stay and who will go and who is disrespecting 9/11 victims, that was a refreshing idea: A player who is excited just to be here entertained some people. Even if they had no idea who he was. 

More U.S. Open Coverage From Morning Read:

> At a Crossroads, Is Bryson DeChambeau Going in the Right Direction?
> Scottie Scheffler, World No. 1 and Under the Radar, Is Contending
> What to Watch in Round 3: Big Shots, Big Names (Or Not) and a Full Day
> Phil Mickelson Shoots 73 Friday, Ending a Chaotic Couple Weeks
> Who Is This Guy? Nick Hardy’s Career Progression Has Been Slow, But He’s In Contention at Brookline
> U.S. Open Day 2: Live Scores, Updates
> Rory McIlroy Is One Shot Back With the Mindset That It Feels Like the First Time
> Sergio Garcia Leads Large LIV Contingent Missing the Cut at U.S. Open

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