DeChambeau leads charge in volatile third round, McIlroy in the mix and loving test
ON TRACK: Rory McIlroy watches his tee shot on the 11th hole during the third round of the U.S. Open in Pinehurst, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Bryson DeChambeau aggressively charged on Saturday to break away from a crowded leaderboard and stake himself to a three-shot lead over Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay and Matthieu Pavon heading into the final round at Pinehurst No. 2.
Despite getting his hip attended to by a physio after making the turn, he stepped up the pressure with four birdies – including one at 17 after a stumbling double on 16 – to shoot his third consecutive round under par and reach 7-under.
McIlroy got within a shot of DeChambeau with birdies at 9, 12 and 14 to reach as high as 6-under, but he suffered bunkered bogeys on both late par-3s to fall back and out of a final-round pairing pitting the 2020 and 2011 U.S. Open champions. He settled for a 1-under 69 Saturday to sit at 4-under and tied with Pavon and Cantlay.
Instead, McIlroy will embark Sunday in the same position he was a year ago, chasing the leader from the penultimate group. In 2023, McIlroy came up one shot short at Los Angeles Country Club to Wyndham Clark. He’ll be paired with Cantlay, a player he sparred with in last year’s Ryder Cup and was at odds with when they shared spots on the PGA Tour Policy Board.
“It would have been nice to hole that putt at the last and get to 5-under and break out of that logjam at 4,” McIlroy said. “Pros and cons to being in the last group, and maybe playing one group ahead mightn't necessarily be a bad thing. I’m pretty much in the same position that I was last year going into the final day at LACC. So familiar position, been here many times before, and hopefully tomorrow I produce the golf that's needed to go one better.”
In a volatile third round on a volatile course, it was DeChambeau who seemed the most comfortable as he kept giving himself good looks at birdies Oftentimes on Saturday on a course so close to the edge, McIlroy’s conservative gameplan erred on the side of caution and left him a few inches short and rolling off the safer side to the front of Pinehurst’s greens. It led to some more comfortable scrambles for par but not a wealth of birdies. He also managed to get himself in six greenside bunkers and only mustered two sand saves.
His mistakes on the toughest par-3s led to costly bogeys. He made his only three-putt of the week from 30 feet on the sixth when he raced his birdie putt 10 feet past. On both 15 and 17, McIlroy pushed his tee balls into right-side bunkers and couldn’t get either one close enough to save pars – a poor effort to 25 feet on the first and valiant effort from a poor lie to 15 feet on the latter.
“If you told me I’d shoot 69 on the first day I would have taken it, but to be at 3-under after 14 I would be disappointed with 1-under at the end and that’s what happened,” McIlroy said. “I had a couple of loose swings with irons on the two par-3s on the back nine and that cost me a couple of shots. But overall, you know, it's a really good day really encouraged with my play and how I handled myself out there.”
But when McIlroy dialed in the right numbers, he took advantage. On the shortened par-4 third, he drove it into a greenside bunker and blasted to 2 feet. On the par-3 ninth, he hit to the right spot on the slope and rolled down to 8 feet and made it. In the 12th he hit a brilliant approach from 184 yards hole high inside 10 feet for another and at 14 he stuffed a wedge stone dead to reach 6-under.
“I love the test that Pinehurst is presenting, and you've got to focus and concentrate on every single shot out there,” he said. “It's what a U.S. Open should be like. It's obviously great to be in the mix.”
What McIlroy has done well is avoid the disasters that lurk around every corner of the village – disasters that derailed several of the leaders on Saturday. As Shane Lowry said: “You can deal with bogeys, you just can’t deal with doubles.”
Both Tony Finau and Ludvig Åberg made a mess of the brutal right front hole location, suffering triples that crushed their hopes of being in one of the final two pairings on Sunday.
Other who had their heads in clouds suffered similar bouts of turbulence. Belgium’s Thomas Detry got off on the wrong foot with a bogey-double start. Canada’s Corey Conners climbed as high as 3-under before a double-bogey combo on 11 and 12 stalled his ascent.
Even DeChambeau was not immune, as his third into the par-4 16th rolled back off the green to compound the mistake of a bad tee shot and led to a double or he might have been five shots clear going to the final round.
Hideki Matsuyama and Åberg share fifth at 2-under, five shots back of the leader while Tyrrell Hatton and Finau lurk in red figures at 1-under.
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