Sawt Falasteen - Hadwin leads the US Open by treating it like any old event

The 34-year-old Canadian hopes a calmer attitude and no expectations might help him stay in contention into Sunday's final round at The Country Club.

"I know this is the US Open. I know it's difficult," Hadwin said. "I think in the past I may have played too cautiously because it was a US Open and said, 'I need to hit it up here and do that.'

"Today, I treated it like every other tournament. I got a wedge from 100 yards, I'm going to be aggressive. That was probably the biggest key to my success."

Hadwin, never better than 24th in 19 prior major starts, fired a four-under par 66 to grab a one-stroke lead after 18 holes in difficult conditions.

But Hadwin treated the dense rough and hard-to-hold greens just like any other event and found success, closing the front nine with five birdies on the last six holes and firing level par on the back nine.

"I've done a really good job of keeping expectations at zero to start the round," Hadwin said. "Not only start the round, but throughout the round.

"That has been one of the keys of why I'm playing well recently, certainly one of the keys as to why I was able to keep the round going.

"Sometimes you hit good shots and they don't quite work out. Sometimes you hit bad shots and they work out. So just numbers, targets and trying to execute and whatever happens happens."

The methodical approach might help him add to his lone US PGA Tour triumph at the 2017 Valspar Championship.

Also helping Hadwin was last week's emotional return of the US PGA Tour's Canadian Open in suburban Toronto after a two-year hiatus due to Covid-19. In some ways, that produced more pressure than this week's major test, he said.

"Last week was incredible. Two years off. Fans came in strong. They were loud. It was a lot of fun to play up there," he said.

"In certain instances it definitely felt a little more relaxed than last week."

Hadwin has been trying to better control his emotions in order to improve his results. For at least one day, it's working well at a major.

"I'm trying to be a little bit more even-keel, maybe a little less emotional on the golf course even though it comes out at times," Hadwin said.

"Certainly just narrowing into the golf shot and the task at hand -- and I did a really good job of that today."

C.AbuSway--SF-PST