Emiliano Grillo posted the round of the day, a 3-under 67, to move from a share of 46th to a tie for sixth at even-par 210. Also on that number is two-time major winner Xander Schauffele (73), along with Keith Mitchell (70) and Sam Burns (71). Schauffele rebounded from double bogeys on 10 and 12 with birdies on 13 and 15 to stay in contention.<\/p>\n
While the winds blew hard early in the day \u2013 gusts were recorded in the low 40s \u2013 they began to subside as the day wore on. But that didn\u2019t mean the course played any easier. Greens began to firm up along with the tension.<\/p>\n
The day began with 10 players in red figures and it ended with only four. Only three players in Shinnecock U.S. Open history have finished 72 holes under par (1986 champ Raymond Floyd; 2004 champ Retief Goosen and 2004 runner-up Phil Mickelson).<\/p>\n
The third-round scoring average was 73.61, the highest of the championship.<\/p>\n
Only Scheffler and Grillo bettered par.<\/p>\n
Clark played the kind of round that wins U.S. Opens. Outside of a 7-foot miss for par on 18, he was a wizard on and around the greens. In fact, the par saves might have been better than the 275-yard, 3-wood second to No. 16 to set up a 4-foot eagle. Two of the last three U.S. Open champions at Shinnecock who led in scrambling went on to win the championship: Corey Pavin in 1995 and Goosen in 2004, when he had 11 one-putt greens in the final round.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Clark was 7 for 9 in scrambling and is 13 of 17 for the championship. He made some 50 feet of par putts in the third round.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, they’re huge,\u201d said Clark. \u201cThat’s what you have to make to win U.S. Opens. You’re not going to have too many birdie putts, and when you do miss, it’s really hard to hit a gimme, so you’ve got to make those 5- to 12-footers.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the 10th, Clark\u2019s 65-yard wedge approach trickled over the green, and he deftly recovered with a pitch to 4 feet. On the par-3 11th, he found the right bunker off the tee and knocked a 54-degree wedge to 6 feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in jail and hit really good shots and then made the putts,\u201d said Clark.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Clark gets to play alongside one of the game\u2019s behemoths. Scheffler, who chipped in for birdie on 14, could have gone even lower on Saturday. He failed to get up and down for birdie from 90 feet after almost driving the 375-yard 13th hole, nearly eagled No. 16 and then missed a 4-footer on 18 for birdie. He has played Shinnecock in 3 under par since opening with a 72 on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emiliano Grillo posted the round of the day, a 3-under 67, to move from a share of 46th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[208,599,885],"class_list":["post-24912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scottie-scheffler","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-spotlight","tag-u-s-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}