Sebastián Muñoz, Chesson Hadley share lead at John Deere Classic

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SILVIS, Ill. – Notes and observations from Saturday’s third round of the John Deere Classic where Patrick Rodgers continues to control the tournament in search of his first win. After a patient 3-under 68, he sits at 16-under and two shots clear. Leading the chasing back are two-time PGA TOUR winner Daniel Berger and three-time TOUR winner Scott Stallings at 14-under. For more from TPC Deere Run check out the Daily Wrap. RODGERS READY TO WIN Patrick Rodgers says his record equaling 11 wins at Stanford (tied with Tiger Woods no less) seem like “yesterday and a lifetime all at the same time.â€� The feelings of how to win when in contention are still fresh for the now 25-year-old college prodigy. The fact he hasn’t yet leveraged his comfort level in the lead with a PGA TOUR win makes it feel like a distant memory. “I had a lot of experience winning in collegiate and amateur golf, and I expected to maybe come out here and win right away. Probably the biggest frustrations as a pro have been not getting it done yet,â€� Rodgers admits as he takes a two-shot lead into Sunday at the John Deere Classic. “When you’re used to having so much success and contending on a regular basis, you kind of thrive on that. Part of the frustrating part of professional golf for me so far has been not having as many chances as I would like.â€� It is just the second time in his three seasons on the PGA TOUR he has held the 54-hole lead. He did so earlier this season at the Farmers Insurance Open before finishing T4. “You have to do some serious soul searching, because the line is incredibly fine between great, great golf and going home on a Friday or just not playing the way that you want. “But this is exactly where I want to be. It’s why I show up every week, to win. I think Tiger started this mentality, or Mr. Jack Nicklaus before him. You play to win. I grew up playing all sports, and you don’t play to finish second. “It’s very rewarding to be up here right now. I know I have a long way to go, but I’m excited for the opportunity.â€� BERGER READY FOR THE CHASE Daniel Berger is arguably one of the hottest players in world golf right now and his confidence level matches the theory as he primes himself to chase a third PGA TOUR win. Berger recently defended his FedEx St. Jude Classic win and then sat and watched Jordan Spieth steal the Travelers Championship from his grasp with a holed out bunker shot in a sudden death playoff. At 9th in the FedExCup this season, he knows a win will shoot him into the top 5. While he starts two-shots back of leader Patrick Rodgers, he believes the outcome at TPC Deere Run comes down to one man. Himself. “I feel like if I play well, then I’m going to win the golf tournament. If I don’t, I probably won’t. That’s really kind of cut and dry there,â€� Berger said after his third round 8-under 63 left him at 14-under. “I’m going to have to play really good. Patrick is obviously playing at a really high level.â€� Berger was three back when he won in Memphis last month. He says he’s been further back and won junior and amateur events before. He thrives on the chase. “I love this position. I feel like if I can get off to a good start tomorrow I can put some pressure on Patrick,â€� he said. “Same kind of thing I did in Memphis and Travelers. I just got off to a decent start and made some birdies, and then kind of kept it going from there. “I think as long as I’m standing, then I’m going to have a shot.â€� CALL OF THE DAY STALLINGS SUPER PUTTER ADJUSTMENT Scott Stallings opened the John Deere Classic with an even-par 71 and sat eight shots back after cursing an ice-cold putter. Now, with a round to go, he finds himself tied for second place after back-to-back 7-under 64s leave him at 14-under and just two shots off the lead. Safe to say the putter got hot. After ranking 130th in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting in round one with 34 total putts Stallings needed just 25 putts Friday and 27 Saturday. He now sits eighth in the field through three rounds in Strokes Gained: Putting. “The last six holes on Thursday I made a little bit of a tweak in regards to my speed and kind of how I was seeing the putts,â€� Stallings revealed. “I missed a lot of short putts early in the round on Thursday and really struggled speed-wise as far as matching the line up and everything. “The last six holes my caddie and I just kind of talked about a few different things as far as getting comfortable. And I was able to transition in the last few days.â€� LAMB FEASTS ON DEERE RUN Rick Lamb had the galleries on 59 watch after getting to 9-under on his round through 13 holes, but unfortunately for the PGA TOUR rookie, he was unable to find the three birdies necessary over the last five holes for a sub-60 round. Instead, a bogey on his final hole left him with an impressive 8-under 63, pushing him towards a very important result in terms of his FedExCup status. Lamb admitted to thinking about becoming just the ninth player in PGA TOUR history to shoot a 59 as he came to the closing stretch. “After I made the birdie on the 4th hole, which is my 13th, at that point it kind of crept in my mind,â€� Lamb said. “Wasn’t something I was nervous or worried about. Just if I keep it going, it’s got a chance.â€� Starting the event in 206th spot in the FedExCup Lamb is battling just to get a spot in the Web.com Tour finals. A decent Sunday could take care of that. He starts the final round in a tie for 8th, five shots off the lead. “It’s big, but just another day on the golf course,â€� Lamb said. “It’s not like you’re grinding on the leaderboard saying, Oh, I need to make to putt to get to this position. I just need to focus on winning the golf tournament.â€� SHOT OF THE DAY ODDS AND ENDS • Bryson DeChambeau will search for his first win from four shots back after a 1-under 70. The former U.S. Amateur champion played the last six holes 2-over to stall his challenge. • Nicholas Lindheim has struggled in his rookie season on TOUR, sitting 183rd in the FedExCup. But he has a chance to change all that on Sunday as he sits in 4th place just three off the lead. • Zach Johnson had a roller coaster round with an eagle, three birdies, two bogeys and a double bogey adding up to a 1-under 70. It was just the third round in his last 35 at TPC Deere Run that was not in the 60s. The former champion sits 11-under, five off the pace. • Jamie Lovemark continues to knock on the door of a first PGA TOUR win. Now with nine top 10s in the last two seasons without a victory the former amateur prodigy once again sees himself in contention. His 66 on Sunday left him tied 5th at 12-under, four shots back. • Stuart Appleby shot 7-under 64, his best round since October 2014. The nine-time PGA TOUR winner sits tied 18th at 10-under chasing his first top-10 on TOUR since finishing runner up in the opening FedExCup Playoff event of 2014. His last win came in 2010 at the Greenbrier Classic where he came from seven behind, shooting 59, to win. • After making the cut on the number 2014, champion Brian Harman equaled Daniel Berger and Rick Lamb for round of the day with an 8-under 63. It lifted him 52 places into a tie for 18th, six shots back of the lead. • Another past champion making the cut on the number, Steve Stricker posted a 6-under 65, his best round at TPC Deere Run since opening with the same score in 2015. BEST OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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ERIN, Wis. – Ron Whitten is one of three co-designers of Erin Hills. He’s also the longtime architecture editor at Golf Digest magazine. Thus, he understands what makes a good story, a compelling hook, a headline grabber. So how about this one? Make Bunkers Great Again. OK, so those aren’t exactly the words Whitten is uttering at this week’s U.S. Open. Given the political overtones, he’s probably wise not to even go there (plus, he’d need a red cap). But in essence, that’s his hope for Erin Hills’ lasting legacy once the final putt drops Sunday afternoon. Bunkers in America, he said, have lost their way. They’ve gone soft. Too uniform, similar sand, flat-bottom lies. Rarely do they challenge the world’s best golfers. Once tough and foreboding, bunkers now are often warm and inviting – especially at U.S. Opens, where bunkers can be the preferred play instead of the thick rough that’s usually part of the tournament set-up. “Oh, my god – they’re pillows,â€� Whitten said Wednesday on the eve of the 117th U.S. Open. “Everyone wants the same fluffiness, the same consistency, rolling to a flat spot. “Somebody has to take a stand.â€� Enter Whitten and co-designers Dr. Michard Hurdzan and Dana Fry. When they began constructing Erin Hills more than a decade ago, they set out to make bunkers true hazards, with a significant penalty possible for any balls winding up in the sand. Radical thinking? Perhaps. But bunkers were, of course, originally created to be penal. As Gil Hanse, the architect of the Olympic golf course in Rio and an analysis this week for Fox Sports, said, “For the history of the game, bunkers have been a hazard. If they’re no longer hazardous to play or no longer extract some sort of penalty from a player, then they’re really just taking up space.â€� Yet many of the world’s best players do seem to make bunker shots easy like Sunday morning, and it’s been that way for the last few decades. Consider this: In 1980, the sand save percentage on the PGA TOUR was 42.64 percent. The percentage began to rise fairly rapidly after that, and in 1992, the average eclipsed 50 percent (50.52) for the first time and stayed that way for the next nine years. Just twice in the past 28 years has sand save percentage dipped below 48 percent – in 2005, when it was 47.99, and in 2011, when it was 47.77. Going into this week’s major, the TOUR average is back over 50 percent (at 50.31). “Especially for the best players in the world,â€� Hanse said, “it’s gotten to the point where … really the only difference between being in the bunker and being in the grass is the surface they’re hitting off of.â€� Jason Day, the world’s No. 3-ranked player, concurs. “Unfortunately I think we’ve become accustomed to having certain depth, sand, thickness in bunkers,â€� he said. “… But ultimately in the end, it’s a hazard and that’s what they’re there for – for you not to be in there.â€� The Erin Hills design team hopes their course sends out that message loud and clear this week. Utilizing the contours of the land — rolling terrain reflective of the Kettle Moraine area shaped long ago by converging glaciers – they carved out bunkers void of flat areas, essentially taking the same approach as they did with the undulating fairways. Players hitting out of Erin Hills’ bunkers could face an uphill lie, a downhill lie, a sidehill lie, perhaps a ball resting precariously on a crest or in a valley between mounds of sand. “You have awkward shots within the bunkers, shots you can’t advance forward,â€� Whitten said. “You have to play out sideways. Is that fair? Golf’s not a fair game. You’re not supposed to be in the bunkers.â€� Is he positive that none of Erin Hills’ 138 bunkers have a flat lie? “If there’s one out there,â€� he said, “it’s by mistake.â€� Sand, of course, could be smoothed out to make the lies more even. But Erin Hills has “finely granulated granite,â€� according to Whitten, with small pebbles that help the sand stay in its original formation and hold the contours. Although some have wondered that the pebbles might fall onto the putting surface when a player splashes out, Whitten has a solution – just use a towel to whisk away the pebbles. “They’ve got caddies to clear away loose impediments,â€� he said. “It’s legal.â€� Meanwhile, the designers were determined to include erosion bunkers as a key element of the design. Whitten traveled to the foothills of Kansas and took photographs of the water erosion in the land. He brought the photos back to Wisconsin and basically wanted to match that look. Thus, there are approximately 35 to 40 erosion bunkers, with little nooks and crannies – “fingersâ€� if you will – extending out into the rough. The areas are so small that using a rake is impossible; players or caddies will simply need to smooth out the areas with their feet after shots are taken. Depending on which direction the finger is pointing, a ball finding one of those areas could result in a bunker shot with no chance at the pin. Or perhaps even the green. Consider the par-3 ninth, with erosion bunkers around the green. In a USGA video this week, amateur Brad Dalke tried to maneuver a shot onto the green from one of those lies. He couldn’t. Whitten said he saw Daniel Chopra trying to do the same thing. Hanse estimates that just 10-15 percent of all shots in the bunker at the ninth hole will wind up in a crevice. But perhaps 100 percent of the players will be thinking about it off the tee because of the fingers. “The bunker will have expanded in your mind, the emphasis it has on the hole,â€� he said. Players will learn quickly that it’s useless to try a hero shot from certain spots. Instead, they’ll find it’s best to simply accept the consequences of their errant shot and move on. Or better yet, just avoid the bunkers altogether. “They accept it in Scotland,â€� Whitten said, referencing the deep-faced pot bunkers. “But in the U.S., it’s considered unfair.â€� It’s a noble objective, putting teeth back into bunkers. Making it painful to visit rather than a place of beachy tranquility, in which saving par is better than a 50-50 proposition. Will Erin Hills succeed? Whitten certainly hopes so. But there are no guarantees. “It’ll be interesting to see if our philosophy is rejected or copied,â€� he said. Perhaps he’ll know more once the tournament starts. If players start complaining about the erosion bunkers and the impossible shots they encounter, please forgive him for feeling a sense of satisfaction. Erin Hills will have brought back the bunker.

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