Saturday was moving day at the US Open and Adam Scott took that to heart, charging up the leaderboard and ending the day a shot behind leader Sam Burns.
The Australian is now 3-under for the tournament after carding a 67 at Oakmont Country Club during Saturday’s third round. It was a turn-back-the-years round from Scott, the talented Aussie who somehow only has one major championship to his name.
Burns and J.J. Spaun spent much of the day as co-leaders and, despite trading the lead back and forth a few times throughout the day, were very close to ending it that way as well until Spaun’s drive on 18 went into the gallery and his approach shot found one of Oakmont’s diabolical bunkers. Spaun’s bogey on the 18th put him in a tie for second place with Scott, and Burns ended the day as he began it: The sole leader of the 125th US Open.
Burns and Scott will be in the final group on Sunday as Burns chases his first major and Scott looks for his first since 2013. If Scott wins the title at Oakmont, he’ll set a new record for the longest wait between first and second major wins.
“It would be super fulfilling,” Scott said of a potential second major. “Everyone out here has got their journey, you know. Putting ourselves in these positions doesn’t just happen by fluke. It’s not easy to do it. I really haven’t been in this kind of position for five or six years, or feeling like I’m that player. But that’s what I’m always working towards. It’s not that easy to figure it all out.”
The two-way tie for second between Spaun and Scott is good news for both of them – in each of the last 10 majors, the winner has been in either first or second after 54 holes, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. It’s Scott’s best position after three rounds at a major championship since the 2018 PGA Championship, Elias reports.
One other historical fact from Elias Sports Bureau in Scott’s favor: The winners of the last two US Opens at Oakmont started the third round four shots behind the leader – exactly Scott’s deficit as the sun came up on Saturday.
Rain hits Oakmont overnight as conditions challenge players
An overnight drenching softened the course in the morning, but it didn’t seem to slow down the greens as they still played lightning fast – and got quicker as the sun broke through the clouds in the early afternoon. Saturday brought wind into the equation along with the damper roughs, ratcheting up the difficulty on a course that was already putting the field into submission holds.
The highest-profile pairing of the morning – No. 2 Rory McIlroy and No. 3 Xander Schauffele – was a prime example of the course refusing to give an inch. Any time either player tried to get aggressive, they were punished with excruciating lies in the thick stuff on either side of the fairway. Schauffele’s bogey on 17, during which he drove to the left of the green into thick rough and then hit a disappointing chip shot that rolled off the side of the green into a bunker, was emblematic of a day when both men had hoped to make a run to get themselves into contention for Sunday’s final round.
McIlroy ended with five bogeys and fired a 4-over par 74, leaving him at 10-over for the tournament.
When the leaders took the course for their afternoon rounds, they were greeted with a series of brief downpours as storms rolled through Oakmont. The rain didn’t last as long as Friday night’s drenching, when about an inch of rain fell overnight, but it was enough to give hope to the afternoon players that this bear of a golf course might yield a few more birdies.
By the time a temperate evening had taken hold, the players set the stage for Sunday drama.
Burns and Spaun are joined by Scott in the hunt for a championship
Burns and Spaun have played two neck-and-neck rounds and were trading the lead back and forth on their opening nine holes Saturday. Burns birdied the par-3 13th, sending a roar across the grounds as he dropped his tee shot within seven feet of the hole. He nailed the putt, taking a one-shot lead as Spaun continued to put up par after par.
When Burns bogeyed the par-3 16th, missing an eight-foot par putt that seemed shocking for a player whose play on the greens had been incredible all week, Spaun saved par with a clutch second shot that put him five feet from the cup. He nailed that to bring himself into a share of the lead.
“Given (the wind) and how soft and wet everything was, it played longer, but it kind of allowed for longer irons in to really stop. You were able to control your landing spot, just because of how soft they were,” Spaun said after the round.
One group in front of them, the elder statesman of the top of the leaderboard – Scott, 44 – was catching fire on the back nine. He birdied the 13th and then nearly shot to the top of the field himself with a spectacular 94-yard approach shot that stopped 14 inches from the cup. He tapped in that putt for birdie, putting himself just two shots off the lead.
He’d pull himself into a share of the lead on 17, nailing a birdie putt only moments after Burns had bogeyed. Suddenly, what had been a duet became a trio at the top the leaderboard.
“It was like a readjustment out there today. Obviously, it was softer, and controlling spin to some pins was very difficult,” he said. But I just tried not to force anything. I played safe shots and accepted I wasn’t going to finish next to the hole when it wasn’t dialed in.”
But Burns was determined to not let the bogey and Scott’s surge drag him down. The 28-year-old has focused on playing free at Oakmont this week and sent his drive on the short par-4 17th 280 yards, where it landed just in front of a bunker guarding the green. He pulled out a wonder shot of his own, chipping over the trap onto the green and stopping the ball with a considerable amount of backspin to leave it seven inches from the cup.
“I didn’t drive the ball as well as I would have liked to,” Burns said. “But when I got out of position, I feel like I did a good job of getting myself back in the fairway, having a wedge or short iron in my hand and giving myself a chance for par. I was able to convert some of those and kind of kept the momentum going.”
He tapped in for birdie and once again retook sole lead of the tournament – for about a minute. Spaun drained his 14-foot birdie putt to once again grab a share of the tournament lead as the group went to the day’s final hole.
Spaun’s bogey on 18 sets up Sunday showdown
Both Spaun and Burns sent their drives right into woeful position as they started the 18th as Scott finished up his round on the green. The Australian ended his spectacular day with one last par putt from two feet, carding a 3-under 67 for the day – tied with Mexico’s Carlos Ortiz for the best round of the day.
As Scott left the putting surface, Spaun tried to figure out how to attack a 187-yard approach shot from outside the ropes in the gallery and Burns stared at a ball that was engulfed by Oakmont’s thick rough about 10 yards ahead of him.
Spaun couldn’t escape as cleanly, sending his approach into the bunker that stands in the front right of Oakmont’s 18th green. Burns had better luck with his poor lie, getting onto the green. However, the position of the ball meant that the man whose short game has been key to getting him into this position couldn’t put any spin on the ball and it bounced more than 50 feet past the hole for a difficult birdie putt.
Burns two-putted from there, ending his day with a par and a 1-under round, shooting 69. Spaun, meanwhile, couldn’t get up and down for par, finishing with a bogey that saw him match Burns’ score. He said he was “just happy I’m still within shouting distance going into tomorrow” after the bogey
As the players walked off the course with the sun setting at Oakmont, the duel between Burns and Spaun on the day had been a draw.
“I was trying to focus on my game. It seemed like we were kind of back and forth; he would take the lead, I would take the lead, I would fall back, whatever. But it was fun. You can’t really play against your opponent; you got to play this course,” Spaun said.
But it was Scott, on the strength of his magnificent round, who jumped Spaun on the leaderboard to ensure his place in the final group on Sunday.
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