Scottie Scheffler powers out of the rough at the par-five 5th. He’s greenside, but shortsided, and there’s a bunker in the road as well. He can’t generate any spin whatsoever with his wedge from the hard ground, and leaves his speculative long birdie putt short. By his own stellar standards, Scheffler is firing on precisely no cylinders at the moment, and he’s wasting opportunities on the easier part of the course.

Par for Rory McIlroy at 4, who remains +1. He’s going around today with the in-form Maverick McNealy, who has top-20 finishes in both of the majors so far this season. Birdie for the 30-year-old Californian, and he moves into red figures overall at -1.

Scottie Scheffler’s putter continues to misbehave. A trademark approach at 4 sets up a nine-foot birdie chance, and it’s a fairly simple, reasonably straight putt. But he doesn’t hit it, the ball always dying to the left, never threatening to get hole-high. Quite a bit of evident frustration as he remains +2. That elusive US Open isn’t off the table yet, but assuming Wyndham Clark keeps his nerve and doesn’t do the field a big favour by collapsing, it’s coming close to the time where Scheffler will have to be a bit more proactive. Sending his tee shot into thick rough down the left of 5 won’t help his mood, especially as the second portion of the front nine is considered the most gettable stretch on the course.

Rory McIlroy leaves himself another monster putt, this time on 3. He doesn’t judge this 70-footer particularly well, leaving himself a ten-foot tester for his par. It’s always dying to the right of the cup, and he drops to +1. Emiliano Grillo also takes a step backwards, finding the bunker to the right of the par-three 17th, and having found himself shortsided, leaving himself too much to do after the chip out. Grillo slips back to level par for the tournament.

Emiliano Grillo birdies the par-five 16th – statistically the second-easiest hole on the course today – and he moves into red figures for the week at -1. The 33-year-old Argentinian, whose best finish by far at an US Open was his tie for 19th last year, is now four-under par for his round today.

-7: Clark
-3: Fitzpatrick, Schauffele, Stevens, Kim
-2: Morikawa
-1: Grillo (16), Thomas, Higgs, Burns, Theegala
E: 12 players, including Fleetwood (7) and McIlroy (2)

McIlroy is second in the putting stats this week. And on the long par-three 2nd, he further demonstrates why. He doesn’t take enough club into the wind at the 229-yard hole, and his five-iron only just finds the fringe at the front, with the pin near the back. He’s left with a 90-foot putt uphill, and he needs to pull his putter back to near knee-height before making the forward stroke. There’s plenty of left-to-right swing as well. But he sends it to tap-in distance. A par-par start for Rory that’ll feel like quite the accomplishment. Scottie would have paid cash money for it, for sure. McIlroy remains at level par.

There will be exceptions, of course there will, but as a rule, today will most likely be more about not slipping back than making huge strides forward. See Scottie Scheffler in the previous entry. He’s being followed in the group behind by Rory McIlroy, who also gets up and down from greenside sand at 1, but does so to save his par. A tickly little seven-foot left-to-right slider will have settled a few nerves. The 2011 champion remains at level par.

The world number one Scottie Scheffler is looking to complete a career slam this week. He’s not brought his best stuff so far, though, and after opening rounds of 72 and 68, started his weekend at level par. And it looks like his struggles are going to continue. He pulls his opening drive into the semi-rough down the left of 1, then sends his second into knee-deep fescue. His third trickles into a greenside bunker, and though he does well to get up and down, that’s an opening bogey … and he follows it with another at the par-three 2nd, finding more sand and not getting particularly close with his splash out. Scheffler slips back to +2 in short order.

Of the 54 players from the 72-strong field who have already played some golf today, there are only five currently under par for their rounds. Emiliano Grillo is the main mover: he’s three under after 15 holes, moving up the leaderboard to level par overall. Meanwhile Tommy Fleetwood started slowly with bogey at 3, but he’s cancelled that out, and then some, with eagle at the par-five 5th, and consolidated that gain with a sandy par at 6. He’s level par for the week as well, and as we’ve just seen, knows his way around this golf course all right.

Shinnecock weekends are usually brutal. Just ask Phil Mickelson. As just mentioned, only one player was under par after 26 holes eight years ago; there were none by the end of the week. (To be fair, eventual winner Brooks Koepka shot 68 on the final day to finish at +1, while runner-up Tommy Fleetwood broke the course record with a 63, but let’s not muddy the waters.) It’s perhaps more relevant to note that 11 players were under par at the halfway stage in 2004, but only two remained so by the time Retief Goosen won his second US Open on the Sunday. That latter tournament could well be what the USGA are going for here. Either way, it could be a long, hard grind this afternoon for some of the biggest names in golf.

Dylan Wu might have been the first to run up a big score today, but chances are he won’t be the last. The USGA kept the greens under strict control on the first couple of days, hence a relatively large number of players under par after 36 holes: ten this year, compared to one in 2018, for example. But they’ve let them off the leash today, giving them a trim, and the stimp reading has reportedly moved from just over 10 to just over 11. Throw in winds of up to 30mph today, and good luck everyone! The wind might drop a bit later in the day, so there could be a slight advantage to the leaders, but let’s not expect miracles.

Here we go, then … and what better way to start our much-admired Moving Day coverage with a hoary old observation? And it’s this: there isn’t a golfer on the planet who won’t have, at some point in their golfing life, wondered why on earth they bother, and why they’re doing this to themselves. The latest illustration of this maxim is Dylan Wu. The 29-year-old American and his caddie – his brother Jeremy, carrying the bag for the first time since seeing off cancer, but that’s another story - cavorted around the 18th green after a seven-foot par putt went in to become the final player to make the cut. And so to the 1st green this morning. A five-putt leading to a quadruple-bogey eight. Wu has ended his third round now, carding 82; only young Icelandic amateur Arni Sveinsson has shot a higher round this week (84 on Thursday). Why do we bother? Why do we do this to ourselves? But you know and I know that Wu will be back tomorrow, looking to improve on his current position, 72nd in a field of 72 at +16. He may well shoot under par. Golf’s like that. It’s why everyone bothers, and keeps coming back.