U.S. Open Reads: Early Sunday Edition

The art department emailed a special Saturday night logo, apparently after reading Jim Litke's AP column on the Open:

The course is so quiet and the golf so dull at Winged Foot that the broadcast of Sunday's final round should begin with a warning: Do not try to drive or operate heavy machinery after watching this U.S. Open. May cause excessive drowsiness.

But it isn't just the lack of recognizable names or rivals on the marquee that has given the place all the ambiance of an empty theater. By toughening up an already tough venue, the U.S. Golf Association has chased most of the birdies away, too.

By the close of play Saturday, only 635 had been wrung from the 6,732 holes played, less than one for every 10. There have been 15 eagles, total. The number of bogeys, on the other hand, is 1,932, plus 275 doubles and 35 others, most of which you don't want to know about. 

It makes you wonder what it is they do in the press tent all day, because remarkably no one asked Geoff Ogilvy about the debate he had with Squirrel on No. 12. NBC made a big deal about it and clearly it was something worth asking Ogilvy about.

Thankfully, Rich Lerner asked him later on the post game show and Ogilvy said he was not mad at Squirrel, but instead annoyed "that the decision I had to make,I didn't want to make." Thanks Rich! Someone's doing their job!

Here's Damon Hack's New York Times game story for the Sunday edition. Dave Anderson looks at the 18th green and everything that's happened there.

Sunday's pairings are posted, with leaders still going at 3 even though they took 4:10 to play today.  

Jane McManus on the groups marshaling holes, including the Tillinghast Society on 17. These people have done an amazing job all week, not only with crowd control, but not losing any balls.

The Journal news offers a photo collection to peruse.

Mark Soltau passes along a weather advisory for tomorrow in New York and at "The Foot," as everyone at Golf Digest is now calling it.

As for stats, reader Martin posted earlier today and then JT followed up on NBC pointing out the much lower scoring average today.

Well, as both made clear, if you take the scoring average of the 63 who made the cut today and compare it with their averages in rounds 1 and 2, the course played just as tough today as it did in round one. From JT:

Scoring average for the top 63: Thursday – 73.7, Friday – 72.5, Saturday – 73.7

Other eye-openers from round 3:

Cost of rough on three non-tiered rough holes in round 3: .744 (5), .359 (6), .704 (11).

But that's nothing compared to No. 14, where the cost of rough was .907!

GIR and scoring average on No. 3, played from the back tee today: 22.2%, 3.508

Driving average today was 292.9 yards

The field hit 51.8% of their fairways in round 3, with the cost of rough at .505, GIR at 54.1%