When the golfers tee off on Saturday in the third round of the U.S. Open, two players with Alabama golf roots will be among those on the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club. Former Alabama All-American Justin Thomas, No. 16 in the Official World Golf Ranking, is not one of them.

Vanderbilt amateur Gordon Sargent from Mountain Brook High School and former Auburn standout and Korn Ferry Tour rookie Jacob Solomon are among the remaining golfers. Each is playing in the U.S. Open for the first time.

Sargent is tied for 30th at even par after shooting 69 on Thursday and 71 on Friday. Solomon is tied for 39th at 1 over after shooting 68 on Thursday and 73 on Friday.

Each golfer has nine birdies through two rounds. Only seven players had more.

Sargent also has seven bogeys and a double-bogey on the par-3 seventh in the second round. Solomon had a roller-coaster final nine holes in the second round with five bogeys, three birdies and one par as he finished on the front nine and made the cut with one stroke to spare.

Thomas didn’t play anywhere near that well.

In the third round of the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills in Wisconsin, Thomas shot a 9-under 63, the lowest round in relation to par in the tournament’s history. Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele opened this year’s U.S. Open with 62s, which is 8 under on the North Course.

But Thomas won’t play in the third round on Saturday.

After carding a 3-over 73 in the first round, Thomas’ score ballooned with an 11-over 81 on Friday, the second-worst round of his PGA Tour career. Only three golfers posted higher scores than Thomas in the first two rounds as he missed the cut by 12 strokes.

Thomas’ scorecard for the second round included seven bogeys and three double bogeys. Thomas said his “humiliating and embarrassing” showing had left him “definitely the lowest I’ve felt.”

“It’s weird because I felt like I was playing the best I’ve played in a really long time this week, end of last week,” Thomas said. “It’s a funny game, man. You know, it can leave you speechless good and bad, and right now it’s unfortunately the bad.”

Thomas missed 15 of the 26 fairways, found only half of the greens in regulation and needed 64 putts to get through two rounds.

Once the top-ranked player in the world, Thomas has five missed cuts and four top-10 finishes since winning the 2022 PGA Championship, his second major victory.

“I’ll figure it out,” Thomas said. “I have another major left. If I go win the British Open, nobody even remembers that I’ve missed the cut by a zillion here, so I’ve just got to find a way to get better and learn from this, and if I can, I don’t have to look at this week as a total failure.”

Four other golfers with Alabama golf roots also exited the U.S. Open after the second round:

· Bradshaw High School alumnus Stewart Cink shot 70 in the first round and 75 in the second round to finish at 5 over. Cink was 5 over across the final 13 holes of the second round.

· Huntsville native and Alabama golfer Nick Dunlap carded a 77 on Thursday and a 71 on Friday to finish at 8 over.

· Lee-Scott Academy alumnus Davis Thompson went 72 and 71 to post a 3 over. He missed the cut by one stroke. In the second round, Dunlap had three bogeys on par-4s over his final seven holes.

· Auburn’s Brendan Valdes posted a 78 in each round to finish at 16 over. Valdes lost five of those strokes to par on the par-3 fourth in the two rounds.

In the third round on Saturday, Solomon will tee off at 1:50 p.m. CDT and Sargent will tee off at 2:12 p.m. Solomon is paired with Hideki Matsuyama, and Sargent is playing with Collin Morikawa.

NBC will televise the third round from noon to 10 p.m. Saturday.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.