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| Third Round of the U.S. Open Becomes Battle for Par | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| After a week of weather woes and doubts about the course’s worthiness, the United States Open at Merion Golf Club on Saturday looked a lot like any other Open: a bunched-up leader board full of players struggling to keep par in their sights. | After a week of weather woes and doubts about the course’s worthiness, the United States Open at Merion Golf Club on Saturday looked a lot like any other Open: a bunched-up leader board full of players struggling to keep par in their sights. |
| The third round contenders quickly began contesting what looked like a pack race of tortoises. The moves were small and slow — largely because the pace of play, already slow, became glacial — and reaching under par felt like nirvana. Through nine holes, Charl Schwartzel had shuffled to the lead at one under. Luke Donald joined him with a birdie on No. 8. | |
| John Senden was briefly alongside too, swapping bogeys and birdie on Nos. 6, 7 and 8 to fall one shot back. He was tied at even par with Steve Stricker, who was on a run of eight straight pars. | |
| Only two players had entered the third round with scores under par and they didn’t stay at the top for long. Phil Mickelson and Billy Horschel Both had matching bogeys on No. 3 and again on No. 5 to slide back to one over. | |
| Mickelson was avoiding his usual Open adventures and was all around the hole, but just missed on his best birdie attempts and could not make a move. | |
| Despite doubts that Merion was no longer long enough nor tough enough to provide the prototypical (read: punishing) Open test, the going has been anything but easy. The waves of rain that inundated the course all week did not succeed in turning the greens into spongy welcome mats, as some feared, but it did add a layer of squishiness to the rough, only deepening its ball-swallowing potential. | Despite doubts that Merion was no longer long enough nor tough enough to provide the prototypical (read: punishing) Open test, the going has been anything but easy. The waves of rain that inundated the course all week did not succeed in turning the greens into spongy welcome mats, as some feared, but it did add a layer of squishiness to the rough, only deepening its ball-swallowing potential. |
| The early holes did yield a few birdies. Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy — playing together for a third straight day after they each finished the second round at three over par — both walked off No. 1 with a birdie. Both quickly found trouble on subsequent holes. McIlroy drove into trouble and took bogeys on both No. 2 and 3 and Woods joined him with a bogey on No. 3 and again on Nos. 5, 6 and 10. Woods and McIlroy had slipped to six over through 10 holes. | |
| Charley Hoffman, who finished his second round in disastrous fashion with a triple-bogey on the par-4 No. 10, managed two birdies in his first four holes to push himself to two over. The second one came on the par-5 No. 4, when he played his third shot out of a water hazard by taking off his shoes and rolling up his pants and chipping in his fourth shot from off the green for the birdie. Loar used an eagle on the par-5 No. 2 to reach two over as well. He then added a birdie on No. 5 to reach one over. | Charley Hoffman, who finished his second round in disastrous fashion with a triple-bogey on the par-4 No. 10, managed two birdies in his first four holes to push himself to two over. The second one came on the par-5 No. 4, when he played his third shot out of a water hazard by taking off his shoes and rolling up his pants and chipping in his fourth shot from off the green for the birdie. Loar used an eagle on the par-5 No. 2 to reach two over as well. He then added a birdie on No. 5 to reach one over. |
| Nicolas Colsaerts has had an adventurous start to his round, going from double-bogey on No. 2 to an eagle on No. 2 to a bogey on No. 3. He sits at two over. | Nicolas Colsaerts has had an adventurous start to his round, going from double-bogey on No. 2 to an eagle on No. 2 to a bogey on No. 3. He sits at two over. |
| Saturday’s king of calamity was Sergio Garcia, who barely made the cut, played several holes worth of golf on No. 15. He hit three balls out of bounds and walked off with a 10. That sent him skyrocketing to 14-over par. | Saturday’s king of calamity was Sergio Garcia, who barely made the cut, played several holes worth of golf on No. 15. He hit three balls out of bounds and walked off with a 10. That sent him skyrocketing to 14-over par. |
| While Woods grabs his share of attention in his effort to break his major tournament drought, Mickelson is also trying to break a drought. He has never won the United States Open despite five second-place finishes, most recently in 2009. The tournament does not naturally suit his high-risk, high-reward game because Open courses rarely reward risk. | While Woods grabs his share of attention in his effort to break his major tournament drought, Mickelson is also trying to break a drought. He has never won the United States Open despite five second-place finishes, most recently in 2009. The tournament does not naturally suit his high-risk, high-reward game because Open courses rarely reward risk. |
| And Merion has followed that trend nicely, despite all the hand-wringing. | And Merion has followed that trend nicely, despite all the hand-wringing. |