Prior to Thursday, only one round of 62 had been scored in a major, and it had never been scored in the US Open.
Just halfway through the first round of the 123rd US Open, two of the 62s were on the board.
Rickie Fowler connected with 10 birdies en route to his first 62 in US Open history on Thursday afternoon, and Xander Schauffele finished after nearly 20 minutes with a bogey-free 62 to match him.
Fowler and Schavel went 8-under-par at the Par-70 Los Angeles Country Club, which is hosting a Major for the first time. They were five from the field, with world No. 1s Scotty Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau within a group at 3 Under.
South African Branden Grace was previously the only player to land a 62 card in a major, accomplished in the third round of the 2017 Open Championship.
Six players have scored round of 63 in the 123-year history of the US Open: Johnny Miller, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf and Vijay Singh of Fiji, Justin Thomas and Tommy Fleetwood of England.
Both players are native Californians in search of the first major titles of their careers.
Fowler made 10 of 13 fairways and 15 of 18 greens in regulation. Most importantly, he led the field with a 4.73 earned run.
“I knew it was close. I wasn’t sure of the exact number,” Fowler said of the telecast’s filing. “I was really trying to keep moving forward. I made a lot of good swings. It’s been a while since I’ve done some midrange smashes, so it was good to make a lot of those smashes.”
Fowler cruised to number 10 in the morning wave and played his first nine at 3-under-5 Birdies, two bogeys. His birdie putt of nearly 16 feet at the 18th hole shot a series of four birdies.
On the first par-5, Fowler’s third shot from a green bunker stopped 5 feet from the pin, and his second shot on the par-4 stopped about 2 feet from the cup. And in the fourth third, Fowler’s approach turned back and glancing at a teammate’s ball, stopping a 4-foot touchdown and a change from the pin. The resulting birdie pushed him forward of the pack with several shots.
Fowler’s last birdies came at Nos. 6 and 8, the latter a Par-5 that saw him in trouble just off the tree. His drive landed in a barranca that winds across the estate, but he swooped down the fairway, dodged an overhanging tree, and reached the green in three shots before sinking a 13-foot birdie.
He putt two par-3 9th hole to conclude his historic tour.
Schauffele also started on the back nine and birdied three of his first five holes. Watching a 17-foot birdie tossed in number one 360 degrees around the cup before dropping, he stayed on Fowler’s tail with birdies in numbers 2, 5, and 7.
Shortly after Fowler signed the 62, Schauffele hit a 7-foot left-to-right in the eighth to tie it at 8-under. He had to save par from about 4 feet into the ninth to secure a 62.