Patience a virtue for Warren

19 June 2015 12:01

Patience paid dividends for Scotland's Marc Warren as he made an impressive start to his second US Open at Chambers Bay on Thursday.

Warren carded four birdies and two bogeys in an opening 68 to lie just three shots off the clubhouse lead shared by Henrik Stenson and Dustin Johnson.

"I'm obviously really pleased with that," said the 34-year-old from Glasgow, who finished tied for 65th on his US Open debut at Olympic Club in 2012.

"Anything under par in a US Open is a pretty good score, so to shoot 68 today on a course like that was very nice.

"I got a couple under early on and after that I just tried to stay as patient as I possibly could.

"When you look at the leaderboard and see guys on five or six under it's easy to get carried away and try to chase a really low score, but that's a very dangerous game to play. You're better off leaving them to it because you know this course will force you into making some mistakes along the way.

"Level par is always normally going to be a pretty decent score in the US Open. That's the way the USGA set their courses up, so you have to adapt, play conservatively for the most part, keep the mistakes to a minimum and try to take your chances if and when they come along."

Warren, who won his third European Tour title in Denmark last year, birdied the fourth and fifth to reach the turn in 33 and recovered from bogeys on the 10th and 11th with birdies at the 15th and 18th.

"This morning it was slightly softer than it had been in practice, so you could take on a couple more flags," he added. "The ball was stopping a little bit easier, but you can't get overly aggressive, as tempting as it is, because t he undulations can put your ball 30, 40, 50 yards away from the green.

"You still had to be very patient, although distance control was much easier to start the round than it was at the end. I could see it drying out, more like the practice rounds.

"Tomorrow afternoon I think will be exactly the way the course played Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday."

Source: PA