Stewart Cink bounced back
from a terrible start Saturday to finish with a three-under 67 and a share of
the third-round lead with Retief Goosen at the 101st U.S. Open Championship at
Southern Hills.
Goosen, one of three leaders
at the start of the day, parred each of the last nine holes despite a number of
wayward shots down the stretch. The 32-year-old South African managed a 69 to
push the leading total to five-under-par 205.
Cink dropped three shots
over the first two holes to slip to one-over, but reeled off four consecutive
birdies from the fourth hole to climb back to within two shots of the lead at
three-under. A birdie at the 13th was backed up two holes later by a wonderful
six-iron to six feet for the score that gave Cink his first view from the top
spot.
Mark Brooks, a co-leader
of Goosen's after a tournament-low 64 on Friday, shot even-par 70 to join Rocco
Mediate and a swashbuckling Sergio Garcia in third place at four-under.
Hoping to finally shake
the dubious tag of "best player to never win a major", Phil Mickelson followed
up a hot start with a shaky finish Saturday in carding a two-under 68. He stands
alone in sixth at minus-three.
The big lefthander, who
turned 31 on Saturday, celebrated with three birdies over the first five holes.
But he bogeyed the 10th, then answered birdies on 14 and 17 with bogeys at 15
and 18.
"Tomorrow it's going to
be very difficult to make birdies. The pins will be in the high spots and it would
be very dangerous to get at some of those pins," said Mickelson, who also missed
an eight-footer for eagle at 13 and the four- foot birdie putt on the way back.
"Today was the day to go low. There were a lot of birdie opportunities, if you
hit good iron shots you could get at a lot of the pins. Tomorrow, although I'll
play the same, I would venture to say that even par will be a better score than
the 68 today."
Notably absent from the
top of the leaderboard is top-ranked Tiger Woods. The defending U.S. Open champion
turned in a third-round 69 -- his best score of the week by two strokes -- but
missed a handful a birdie opportunities that could have boosted his charge toward
a fifth straight major title.
"I hit a lot of good shots
today, and I hit just so many beautiful putts that just didn't go in, they were
just grazing the edge. That's just the way it is," said Woods, who at nine shots
back at four-over 214 would need the biggest final-round comeback in Open history
to repeat as champion.
At Colorado's Cherry Hills
Country Club in 1960, Arnold Palmer completed the largest come-from-behind surge
with a 65 to make up seven strokes over the last 18, nipping then-amateur Jack
Nicklaus by two shots. It was Palmer's only victory in a U.S. Open.
Woods had his chances on
Saturday. He hit more fairways (10 of 14) and more greens (12 of 18) than in the
first two days of the event, and his 27 putts were two less than his totals from
both Thursday and Friday.
But after birdies at the
fifth and eighth holes offered the hope of a low round, Woods clipped a tree with
his approach to the ninth and had to scramble to save bogey out of the front right
bunker. It was almost the same set of circumstances that led to a painful double-bogey
before the turn in round one.
Woods was just off the
mark on a number of long birdie attempts during the day, but it was a missed birdie
from three feet at the par-five 13th that hurt the most, especially since he went
on to roll in a 12-foot birdie at the 14th and a 15-footer at 17.
"It's a tough spot," said
Woods, who scorched Pebble Beach in last year's Open en route to a record 15-shot
triumph. "But, you know what, if I go out there and play a good, solid round tomorrow,
you never know. I'm really not that angry at myself, because I've tried. I tried
as hard as I could."
Cink is a two-time PGA
Tour winner who has four top-16s in five U.S. Open starts, including a tie for
eighth last year. However, his bogey-double-bogey start in round three should
have sent him reeling to the bottom of the leaderboard.
"I told myself it wasn't
over, and I should right the ship and keep on pressing, because I was three-over
at one point on the first round, too, and I ended up shooting one-under," said
the 28-year-old Cink. "I was able to draw off that a little bit."
And draw he did, to the
tune of four straight birdies in the three to 10-foot range. He made a 12-foot
par save at 11, then added a birdie at the 13th and a birdie at the 15th, set
up by his best swing of the day.
"Fifteen was one of my
highlights today," he said. "I hit a really good second shot in there...made that
downhill putt, and that was a great way to cap off a good round."
Cink leads the field in
putting average with just 1.46 putts per green.
Goosen made scrambling
saves all day, including a 12-footer at the second. He also recorded a pair of
birdies on the way out -- a 15-footer that broke about 10 feet at the fourth,
and a 10-foot birdie that followed a topped tee shot at No. 9.
Skillful up-and-downs after
missed greens at 11 and 12 allowed Goosen to keep the lead to himself for awhile,
and he sank another 15-footer for par at 14. He short-sided himself in the rough
at the 15th, but fashioned a delicate chip to four feet for another save.
Goosen's final three holes
really showed off his survival skills. After getting up and down out of a bunker
at 16, he knocked his approach over the green at 17 then nearly holed his chip.
At 18, with his tee shot 184 yards from the green in the right rough, Goosen pulled
off a low slicing shot that avoided overhanging tree branches and landed pin high,
20 feet to the left, from where he two-putted for his ninth consecutive par.
"I suppose my short game
really saved me today," said Goosen, the winner of four European Tour titles.
"I wasn't hitting the ball nearly as well as I would have liked to. And I had
a few up-and-downs, and that's why I'm still where I am. Hopefully, tomorrow I
can try and just play a little bit better, and give myself more birdie chances."
Goosen posted his best
finish of the season last week with a tie for fifth at the English Open.
Brooks, one of only two
major winners in the current top-10, couldn't duplicate his scoring blitz from
Friday. He did, however, make some important saves of his own to stay in the thick
of things.
Brooks' victory at the
1996 PGA Championship at Valhalla marked the last of his seven wins on the PGA
Tour.
Mediate's 67 matched Cink
for low round of the day. He collected four birdies during his round, the last
coming on a curling 50-footer at the 16th that had just enough momentum to drop
into the cup.
Twenty-one-year-old Sergio
Garcia, seeking to became to youngest U.S. Open Champion since Bobby Jones in
1923, made a back-door 15-foot putt for his third birdie of the day. He alternated
bogeys with birdies from the 12th through the 15th, then lost a chance at a share
of five-under when he missed a 20-footer for birdie at the last. He had a 68.
Paul Azinger (69) and David
Duval are knotted in seventh place at even-par 210, while Canada's Mike Weir (68)
and Jim Furyk (71) round out the top-10 at plus-one.
J.L. Lewis, a 36-hole co-leader
with Goosen and Brooks after a pair of 68s, struggled to shoot 77 Saturday and
dropped to three-over par.
Lee Janzen, the U.S. Open
winner in 1993 and '98, was penalized two strokes for mopping up his lie on the
ninth fairway after returning to finish his suspended first round Friday morning.
Janzen, who was five-over after two rounds, was notified of his infraction Saturday
morning. He was dropped to seven-over and wound up missing the cut by one stroke.
