As Garrett Chaussard prepared to chip onto the 9th green on Thursday afternoon, 25 feet from the pin, caddy Tony Sciandri leaned in and said, “This has you written all over it.”

Sure enough, Chaussard finessed the “straight downhill” chip and the ball rolled right into the hole for a birdie on the 612-yard par 5.

The shot was an immediate hit.

“I got about 10 text messages and three voicemails,” Chaussard said of the moments after the birdie. “Apparently, ESPN picked that up.”

Unfortunately for Chaussard, his first round at the 108th U.S. Open in San Diego had few other glowing moments. Chaussard, a 2001 Serra High graduate, posted a 9-over-par 80 at Torrey Pines’ South Course, leading the third-year professional to say, “To be honest with you, I’m a little disappointed in myself.”

Fellow Serra alum Jordan Cox (class of 2006) also shot 80, leaving the ex-Padres 12 shots behind co-leaders Kevin Streelman and Justin Hicks and in danger of missing the cut.

Cox, an amateur, birdied the par-4 4th hole and was at 1-under through six holes. But then the Stanford sophomore saw his driver begin to betray him, and he fell victim to a string of four straight bogeys and then two double bogeys.

“I was getting greedy when I shouldn’t have been. I was missing big,” said Cox, who attributed the poor driving to a pair of “set-up related” problems he fixed on the driving range afterwards. “I just started spraying it all over the place.”

Upbeat after his range session, Cox said he was eager to test out his improvements on Friday. Asked what it would take to make the cut, Cox said: “I probably have to shoot pretty close to even par.”

“It’s really, really doable,” said Cox, adding that he expects the cutline to be in double digits, “shooting a good score, putting together a really good round.”

Chaussard, who, like Cox, is making his first appearance at a PGA Tour event, said he never found a consistent rhythm and was frustrated by his “loose iron shots.”

“If you don’t hit really good, precise shots, you’re not going to score well,” he added. “You can’t fake it around the U.S. Open. “It’s just set up too tough.”

Despite playing on the Canadian Tour in 2006 and the Gateway Tour last spring, Chaussard said the large galleries made his first round at the Open “a whole new atmosphere.

“There’s always a little bit of a commotion going on, no matter what you’re doing,” he said, “people moving around. It takes a little bit of your focus away.”

“The combination of it being all brand new … and the course being really, really tough,” Chaussard continued, “I guess it’s just human nature to react that way.”

After bogeying five consecutive holes on the back nine, Chaussard finished with three pars. He said he learned a lot about himself in the up-and-down day, and was optimistic his second round would be a lot better.

Assessing the potential cutline and the score he would need to post on Friday to extend his Open stay, Chaussard said: “70 probably wouldn’t get it done.”

“I need a little help from the leaders,” he added. “I need a little good fortune, and I have to go out and kind of make my own luck.”