U.S. Bank Championship: Third-round notebook
By Stewart Moore, PGA TOUR Staff
MILWAUKEE, Wis. -- Gavin Coles and Nick Flanagan sit at 11-under 199 through three rounds of the U.S. Bank Championship and share the lead heading into Sunday's final round.
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• Coles began the third round trailing overnight leaders Flanagan and Richard S. Johnson by one shot and immediately lost ground with bogeys on Nos. 1 and 2 before righting the ship with four birdies and 12 pars the rest of the day. Coles and Ken Duke (Round 3: Nos. 4-5) are the only players in the top 5 with back-to-back bogeys this week.
• The only prior 54-hole lead for Gavin Coles came at the 2005 Shell Houston Open, when he and Vijay Singh were tied through 54 holes. Coles shot 75 in the last round that year and fell five-shots shy of winner Singh. This is the first 54-hole lead of Flanagan's PGA TOUR career.
• Flanagan (tied for first) and Jon Mills (tied for third) are making their first career starts at the U.S. Bank Championship. The last player to win in his first start at the U.S. Bank Championship was Shigeki Maruyama in 2001.
• Last year on the Nationwide Tour, Flanagan became the eighth player to earn the Tour's three-victory promotion to the PGA TOUR after claiming his third title of the year at the Xerox Classic.
• Jason Gore (tied for seventh) picked up his first PGA TOUR title just one month and 11 days after receiving his three-victory promotion via his third win on the 2005 Nationwide Tour at the Cox Classic. Should Flanagan win Sunday, he would be the second-fastest three-victory promotion player to win on the PGA TOUR, a span of 11 months and one day since his win at the 2007 Xerox Classic.
• After missing seven of his first 14 cuts on the PGA TOUR this year, Jon Mills (tied for third) has since made seven cuts in a row and has now carded his fourth round of 66 or better during that stretch.
• In recent years, the 54-hole leader/co-leader has fared well at the U.S. Bank Championship. Joe Ogilvie became the first come-from-behind winner in Milwaukee since 2002 when he made up a one-shot deficit on overnight leader Tim Herron to claim his first PGA TOUR title last year. Corey Pavin (2006), Ben Crane (2005), Carlos Franco (2004) and Kenny Perry (2003) all held at least a share of the 54-hole lead en route to their wins.
• George McNeill (tied for third) and Joe Ogilvie (tied for seventh) are looking to join Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, K.J. Choi, Adam Scott, Boo Weekley, Daniel Chopra and Justin Leonard as the only players thus far with victories in 2007 and 2008.
• Through three rounds of the U.S. Bank Championship, seven players are within the top 10 on the leaderboard and still looking for their first PGA TOUR title: Gavin Coles, Nick Flanagan, Jon Mills, Ken Duke, Richard S. Johnson, Patrick Sheehan and Brandt Jobe.
• First-time PGA TOUR champions at the U.S. Bank Championship: 1971, Dave Eichelberger; 1979, Calvin Peete; 1984, Mark O'Meara; 1985, Jim Thorpe; 1990, Jim Gallagher Jr.; 1992, Richard Zokol; 1993, Billy Mayfair; 2001, Shigeki Maruyama; and 2007, Joe Ogilvie.
• Kenny Perry fired a third-round 69 on Saturday and will enter Sunday's final round trailing by five shots. Perry has come from behind to win in only three of his 12 PGA TOUR titles; however, two of those three came this year when he made up three-shot deficits heading into the final round to win the Memorial Tournament and the Buick Open.
• The largest 54-hole comeback in U.S. Bank Championship history occurred in 1990, when Jim Gallagher Jr. came from five shots back of third-round leader Ray Stewart on Sunday to claim his first PGA TOUR title. At the end of Saturday's third round, there were 33 players within five shots of the lead.
• Dean Wilson (64), Cliff Kresge (66) and Brian Davis (67) were the only players to record bogey-free rounds on Saturday.
• Bill Haas (tied for 12th) is looking to join his father Jay (1981) as a champion at the U.S. Bank Championship. The last father/son combination to win the same PGA TOUR event occurred when Brent Geiberger won the 2004 Wyndham Championship to match his father Al's victory in the same event in 1976.
• This is not the first time that Bill Haas has flirted with winning a title that his father previously won. He was tied for third through 36 holes of the 2007 Buick Invitational, where Jay Haas won in 1978, before firing weekend rounds of 72-75 to finish tied for 20th. More recently, Bill Haas was tied for second through 54 holes of this year's Stanford St. Jude Championship in June before a final-round 74 left him tied for 18th. Jay Haas won in Memphis in 1992.
• The only eagles of the third round came at the par-5 sixth, where Eric Axley hit his second shot to 4 feet, 5 inches and in turn converted the putt, and Martin Laird drained a 51 foot, 10 inch putt for eagle.
• The last 10 winners of the U.S. Bank Championship have managed to card all four rounds in the 60s. Through 54 holes this week, the only player in the top 10 with a single round in the 70s is Richard S. Johnson, who carded an even-par 70 on Saturday.
• Dean Wilson's third-round 64 matched the low round of the day (Jon Mills) and made up for a disastrous stretch of holes on Friday. Wilson played Nos. 1-4 in 6 over par in the second round. Outside of those four holes yesterday, he is 14 under par for the tournament.
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