Horses for Courses: The TOUR Championship

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. – There is crazy and then there is mental. Dustin Johnson shot 7-over 77 and still leads the tournament. Tony Finau and Daniel Berger started the third round 11 shots off the pace in a tie for 45th but after early rounds of 66 they will play in the final group Sunday. Rickie Fowler said it was the toughest round of his life. Marc Leishman said a regular scratch marker probably couldn’t have broken 100. Phil Mickelson putted a moving golf ball to save himself the trouble of another pitch shot. Welcome to U.S. Open Saturday at Shinnecock Hills where just about everything happened. It was the kind of déjà vu the United States Golf Association was desperate to avoid. Back in 2004, when the U.S. Open was last at the venue, the greens were famously lost in the final round. Balls wouldn’t hold. Players were putting balls off greens and into bunkers. Carnage ensued and forced watering of putting surfaces between groups. It left a black eye on the championship and a hiatus from Shinnecock for some time. Returning this year they promised it wouldn’t happen again. And while it certainly wasn’t as bad, it was close. “There were some aspects of this setup that went too far in the sense that well-executed shots were not just not rewarded but penalized,â€� USGA Executive Director Mike Davis admitted afterwards. “We missed it with the wind. It blew harder than we thought it was going to blow… The speed, it was too much for the wind we had.â€� With a little bit of moisture still in the greens and the wind not yet at its freshest the early groups took their chances. Berger started at 10:13 a.m. just under five hours before the leader would go off at 3:10 p.m. Finau began at 10:57 a.m. They were finishing up as the sun finished baking out the course and the wind gusts started pushing over 20 miles per hour. As two-time major winner Zach Johnson came off after his credible round of 72 he warned of the imminent dangers. “We are not on the edge … we’ve surpassed it. It’s pretty much gone. It’s pretty much shot. Which is unfortunate,â€� he told Sky Sports. “Unfortunately they’ve lost the golf course. When you have a championship which comes down to sheer luck, that’s not right.â€� In the last five groups the best score was defending champion Brooks Koepka’s 72. The worst was Fowler’s 84. The 10 players average 76.7 and combined to be 67 over par. “It would just be nice if I’m not sitting here wishing I made cut at five or six over. So that’s all I would kind of say on it,â€� Fowler said referencing how those with earlier tee times had a significant advantage. “When it’s that big an advantage to playing in the morning versus the afternoon, I think it takes away from the work that the guys have done the first two days.â€� Analyst and former TOUR player Brandel Chamblee agreed. “This tournament got turned inside out today. The bottom became the top. The top, in many cases, almost became the bottom,â€� Chamblee said. “The integrity of the championship was certainly called into question. We won’t forget this day for a while.â€� Spanish star Rafa Cabrera Bello bluntly said it wasn’t a fair test of golf and the players were made to look like fools. Henrik Stenson said things were silly. The biggest conjecture came with tough pin positions on the 13th, 15th and 18th holes. The 13th was were Mickelson made a mockery of the rules of golf by hitting a second putt before his first had finished and could roll off the green. It forced a penalty. The 15th saw balls seemingly unable to stop as they trickled endlessly. “Some of these greens, there is no grass around the holes, and the ball just keeps running away,â€� Koepka said. “I don’t have anything nice to say about the green at the 15th, so I won’t say anything.â€� The 18th was near impossible from above the hole. Cabrera Bello barely breathed on a long par putt and it somehow trickled on and on but yet still stayed 2-feet above the hole. His next putt was hit even softer but rolled out 10-feet by. Dustin Johnson would also three-putt the last. After playing sensationally through 36 holes to set up a four-shot lead he barely survived Saturday. Yet still will start Sunday with a share of first. “I didn’t play badly at all,â€� Johnson said. “But with the greens this afternoon, it just became tough. There were four or five holes where I could have putted the ball off the green.â€� And so the anticipation for Sunday’s final round is now rising. Given the comeback of Finau and Berger – there are 57 players within 11 of the lead! But surely history won’t repeat. What type of Shinnecock will we see? “This golf course will be slowed down,â€� Davis said. “There will be water put on the greens.â€� Those in the final five groups are certainly hoping so.

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Welcome to the Stats Insider, where we’ll take a closer look at Adam Scott’s long-awaited (official) win at historic Riviera Country Club. Scott also won here in 2005, but the victory was unofficial because the event was shortened to 36 holes. Riviera rewards ball-striking, and that’s exactly what happened this week. Scott is one of the best iron players in the game and that was on display at the Genesis Invitational. RELATED: Aussie Presidents Cup pact propels Scott | The clubs Scott used to win at Riviera 1. ON THE DANCE FLOOR: Scott finished third in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green, behind only Sung Kang and Collin Morikawa. Scott led the field in greens in regulation, hitting two more than anyone else in the field. Riviera’s firm greens annually rank among the toughest to hit on TOUR. The field hit just 56% of the greens last week. That was the lowest greens-hit percentage this season and 12% below the TOUR’s season-long greens-in-regulation percentage. 2. STRONG APPROACH: We shouldn’t be surprised. Adam Scott has been the best iron player on TOUR over the last five seasons. He has the highest Strokes Gained: Approach per round among the 135 players who’ve played at least 200 ShotLink-measured rounds since the start of the 2016 season. 3. GOLDEN OLDIE: Riviera also rewards experience, and Scott is the latest example. He turns 40 on July 16. Since 2010, only The Open Championship has had a higher average age of winners. 4. IN THE WOODS: Tournament host Tiger Woods got off to a promising start, shooting 4-under-par on his opening nine holes. He was 15 over on the next 63 holes, though, and finished last in the field at 11-over 295. This marked the fourth-highest 72-hole score of Woods’ career. 5. PUTTING STRUGGLES: Woods finished second-to-last in Strokes Gained: Putting, losing more than 8 strokes on the greens. It was the worst Strokes Gained: Putting performance of his career. Four of Woods’ five worst Strokes Gained: Putting performances have come since 2018. Woods four-putted the 13th hole in the third round. He also four-putted in his previous start, at the Farmers Insurance Open. Of Woods’ 14 recorded four-putts in his PGA TOUR career, four have come since the 2018 U.S. Open, a span of 82 rounds. It took him more than 1,100 rounds to record his first 10 four-putts on the PGA TOUR. This is just the second season in which Woods has had multiple recorded four-putts. He had four four-putts in 1998. Woods also four-putted Riviera’s 13th hole in 2000, making it the only hole on which he’s recorded multiple four-putts in his career. He went on to win three majors that year.

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