Round 3 Review: U.S. Open

THE LEADERS

Saturday’s final hole provided a sneak peek into what it’s in store for the final round of the U.S. Open at The Los Angeles Country Club. Chaos.

Rickie Fowler and Wyndham Clark walked up the 18th with the sun setting behind them, the only two men on the golf course. Each their own unique story of perseverance, they spent much of the day tied. Standing in the fairway, Fowler’s lead was now two. Ten minutes later they were tied again.

A bogey on the 17th had dropped Clark to 9 under, but the 29-year-old admitted he was determined to see Fowler again in the final group on Sunday. Clark, who won for the first time earlier this year at the Wells Fargo Championship, showcased the talent that led him to win by four shots at Quail Hollow, stuffing his approach to 6 feet with an emphatic club twirl to boot. A Fowler three-putt later and suddenly the duo enters the final round as co-leaders after 54 holes in a major, a first for both in their careers.

That’s how quickly things can flip in a major championship – and both will have to endure plenty of it over the final 18 holes if they hope to knock off their first major win. Standing tied at 10-under, one clear of Rory McIlroy and three clear of Scottie Scheffler, they say they are ready for it.

“I mentioned out there after going through the last few years, I'm not scared to fail. I've dealt with that. We're just going to go have fun, continue to try to execute, leave it all out there, see where we stand on,” Fowler said.

“It's a little surreal to be in this situation,” Clark said. “Honestly I'm really looking forward tomorrow and the challenge it's going to bring, and hopefully it's my day.”

It was a day of survival for both Clark and Fowler, who shot 69 and 70, respectively. The two battled the toughest conditions and finished their final three holes with little daylight. It was Fowler who blinked first early, bogeying Nos. 2 and 5 to drop out of the lead. He steadied himself from there, playing the final 13 holes in 1 under while Clark struggled on the back nine. He was 2-over on his final nine until the birdie on 18 flipped his fortunes.

The minutia of the third round doesn’t matter much to either guy now, though. Sunday is a blank slate.

“That’s kind of when the tournament really starts,” Fowler said.

Buckle up.

THE STORYLINES

Rory staying patient: It’s hard to call a U.S. Open round stress-free, but Rory McIlroy’s third round came pretty close.

Aside from a poor tee shot on the par-3 fourth and a three-putt on the 13th green, McIlroy left himself in solid albeit unremarkable spots all day long. In a U.S. Open, that’s often the best recipe.

“Felt like I played really smart, solid golf. Hit a lot of fairways, hit a lot of greens,” he said. “Overall, yeah, pretty pleased with how today went, and feel like I'm in a good spot heading into tomorrow.”

He made birdie on the par-5 first and par-4 third before the blunder on four led to a bogey. A string of pars was broken by the bogey on 14 but McIlroy immediately followed it with a birdie on 15 and played the difficult stretch of 16, 17 and 18 as well as you could ask for. Three fairways, three greens, three stress-free pars. He leads the field in greens hit in regulation

He just couldn’t get any mid-range putts to drop. He took 30 putts, his lowest total of the week, but it added up to just 50 feet of putts. There were plenty of putts that just slid by. But given the conditions, McIlroy is fine to concede that, he’s within one of the lead. If he does the same thing Sunday, he believes he will finally end the nine-year major drought.

“I'm going out there to try to execute a game plan, and I feel like over the last three days I've executed that game plan really, really well, and I just need to do that for one more day,” McIlroy said.

Scheffler’s hole-out sets up Sunday drama: Scottie Scheffler was stuck in neutral all day. The putter was struggling. He had just missed a short birdie opportunity on the par-3 15th. He followed it with a bogey on the par-4 16th.

Suddenly seven shots back of the lead, the No. 1 player needed something to spark him for a Sunday charge. It came from the 17th fairway as Scheffler roped a 197-yard approach that landed short of the pin and trundled down a side slope and into the hole for eagle.

“All of a sudden the shot goes in from the fairway and all that stuff just melts away,” Scheffler said.

He wasn’t done. After the longest par-4 hole out of Scheffler’s career, the 26-year-old made his longest putt of the week on the 18th. A 22-foot birdie, just the fourth of the third round on LACC’s finishing hole. What had been a middling round finished as a 68, the lowest round in the final seven groups of the day. He’s 7-under, three back of the leaders.

Scheffler has hung around this week but the player that has won twice on TOUR this season appeared to be dormant through much through three rounds may have just awoken on the 17th. That’s a troubling sign for the rest of the U.S. Open field.

Wayward Schauffele stumbles: Left. Left. Left. Left.

The first four driver swings for Xander Schauffele immediately had him fighting for his life. Los Angeles Country Club is known for its wide fairways, but not many fairways could contain the way Schauffele was swinging it.

He left the 5th hole 3-over for his round – and although he rattled off three birdies to get back to even par heading to his back nine, he couldn’t tame the left-miss coming down the stretch. He missed the fairway to the left on 13, 14 and 17, each time failing to hit the green or get up and down for par. The result? A 3-over 73 leaves him 5-under overall.

“Hit one fairway with my driver, so it was a bit of a grind to say the least,” he said.

Still, in search of his first major championship, Schauffele has done everything but win in his U.S. Open career. He’s finished no worse than T14 in five appearances, with four top-5 finishes to boast. But he will need to straighten out the driver on Sunday if he hopes to break through the close calls and close out a victory.

“Just going to have to do something special, and going to need some help from up top probably,” he said.

NOTABLES

Harris English (6 under): He held a share of the lead momentarily after a birdie on the par-4 10th, but four costly bogeys down the stretch played English out of the final two groups on Sunday. The 31-year-old English has played well in U.S. Opens (two top 5 finishes in his last four appearances) and he can’t be counted out heading into Sunday. Still, if English finishes a few shots back, Saturday afternoon will linger in his mind.

Dustin Johnson (5 under): Always dangerous at the U.S Open, the 38-year-old Johnson is once again in contention. A third-round 71 was unremarkable but kept him hanging around, five shots back of Fowler and Clark.

Tom Kim (3 under): A front-nine 29 vaulted Tom Kim from just inside the cut line to firmly inside the top 20. The 20-year-old is just the fifth golfer in U.S. Open history to achieve the feat. Three bogeys on the back nine stifled what could’ve been a historic round on moving day, but the third-round 66 was the low round of the day and gives Kim an outside chance at his first major entering Sunday.

Padraig Harrington (1 under): The 51-year-old is making the most of his first U.S. Open appearance since 2013. After making the cut on the number, Harrington fired a third-round 67 fueled by an eagle on the par-5 eighth. Harrington has one top-10 finish in four TOUR events this season and has played extremely well on PGA TOUR Champions with five top-7 finishes in six starts.

Jon Rahm (2 over): The 2021 U.S. Open champ’s top form hasn’t materialized this week in Los Angeles. Rahm shot 70 while playing in favorable conditions Saturday morning. Putting was an issue. He needed 32 to navigate around the North Course.

Gordon Sargent (5 over): The No. 1 amateur in the world will be disappointed with his Saturday 75 but he remains a shot clear of Aldrich Potgieter as the low amateur in the field. Sargent, a sophomore at Vanderbilt, is within range of clinching PGA TOUR status this summer through the PGA TOUR University Accelerated Program. A top-20 finish would move Sargent even closer to that goal.

BY THE NUMBERS

12: The number of top-10s in majors since 2014 for Rickie Fowler, tied with Matt Kuchar for the most of any golfer that has not won a major championship.

81: The yardage of the par-3 15th – the shortest hole in U.S. Open history. There was much debate about how the hole would play with the tee box moved up and the hole location in the front of the green. Players seemed comfortable stepping up and spinning a wedge, however, the hole yielded its highest average of the week (2.923).

197: The length of Scottie Scheffler’s hole-out on the par-4 17th. He made a 219-yard hole-in-one at the 2014 AT&T Byron Nelson.

16: The number of PGA TOUR University Accelerated points that Vanderbilt sophomore Gordon Sargent has accumulated. He needs 20 points to gain immediate status on TOUR. A top-20 finish would earn him two more points. A spot on the Walker Cup team would give him another two.