U.S. Open Round 3 recap: Wyndham Clark controls destiny in pursuit of second major title

Wyndham Clark maintains his lead after Round 3. He shot even par in Saturday’s tough conditions while much of the field faltered, meaning he has a six-shot lead over a group of four at 1 under that includes one Scottie Scheffler.

1. Wyndham Clark (-7)
T-2. Scottie Scheffler Sahith Theegala, Tom Kim, Sam Stevens (-1)
T-6. Emiliano Grillo, Keith Mitchell, Sam Burns, Xander Schauffele (E)

With Wyndham Clark still atop the leaderboard, note that the last four men to hold outright 18-, 36- and 54-hole U.S. Open leads all won the tournament comfortably: Tiger Woods in 2000 (by a record 15 shots at Pebble Beach) and 2002 (won by three shots), Rory McIlroy in 2011 (eight shots) and Martin Kaymer in 2014 (eight shots).

The last time it didn’t work out: 1998, when Payne Stewart took a four-stroke lead into the final round, shot a 74 and finished one behind Lee Janzen, who rallied from seven back after 54 holes.

Read the latest on Scheffler’s round here: https://www.nbcsports.com/golf/news/scottie-scheffler-us-open-shinnecock

He’s 1 under 👀

This first attempt at the career Grand Slam seems to be slipping from Scottie Scheffler’s grasp. He’s 1 over through 12 and 7 strokes back from Clark. If he wants to make a push, he needs to get something going now so he’s not trying to make up all that ground in one round.

Sam Stevens is within two of Clark at 4 under. Xander Schauffele is even on the day, but at 3 under, he could make some moves quickly if he starts picking up some birdies. They are five holes in.

Wyndham Clark bogeyed the first to drop to 6 under overall while Matt Fitzpatrick is 3 over on the day and even par.

Emiliano Grillo cards his first under-par round of the week with a 3-under 67 after opening with rounds of 73 and 70. That’s the round of the day so far, especially from the morning wave that got blistered by wind gusts.

He’s even par and T-12 overall.

Rory McIlroy has birdied Nos. 5, 6, & 7 and is 2 under on the day and overall (bogey on No. 3).

Scottie Scheffler drops strokes on his first two holes of a U.S. Open round for the first time since the second round of his major championship debut in 2016 at age 19.

There are five rounds under par today, and only one of those is lower than 1 under — Emiliano Grillo at 3 under.

Emiliano Grillo has been able to put together the low round of the day so far through 10 holes. He is 3 under currently.

As expected, much of the field is struggling with the high wind gusts and fast greens, resulting in many players being at even or over par at the moment.

Could this be ominous for later today? The Elias Sports Bureau, which provides daily statistics for the media, just typed out its first note for round 3: the highest scoring averages for any U.S. Open round at Shinnecock since 1986:

Miles Russell, the top junior in the country, and Jackson Koivun, the top college player in the country (who is about to turn pro), are paired together. They are a combined 38 years, 259 days old. Their combined age is younger than each of these golfers: Shane Lowry, Brian Harman, Billy Horschel and Keegan Bradley.

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are tied for 11th going into the weekend, which makes this stat notable: Either Scheffler or McIlroy (usually both) finished in the top 10 of the last 21 majors since neither did so at the 2021 Masters. The last time neither finished in the top 10 of a U.S. Open? In 2018, the last time Shinnecock hosted, when McIlroy missed the cut and Scheffler fell nine shots shy of qualifying.

The winds were whipping at Shinnecock shortly before play began Saturday morning, but they are expected to slow slightly by the time the leaders tee off this afternoon.

From the weather forecast sent out by the USGA: “The wind let up last evening, but it has picked back up again overnight as a little disturbance swings across New England today giving them more clouds and echoes on radar. Down here across Long Island, we’ll see sunshine this morning mix with a few clouds this afternoon. Temps in the upper half of the 60s to start this morning will climb close to 80 degrees this afternoon. The humidity will be pretty low today with dewpoints not far from 50 degrees thanks to west and northwest winds most of the day. The peak of the winds has come earlier and earlier in the models over the last few days with speeds sustained in the 16-22 mph range for several hours from breakfast through lunchtime before slowly dropping through the teens by mid afternoon and then sinking down below 10 mph more often by the time we finish. Gusts over 30 mph are most likely this morning, then we’ll see those gusts be more in the 20s this afternoon as the wind eventually becomes much lighter tonight into Sunday morning. Once sunshine Sunday morning heats us into the mid 70s by noon, southwest winds will come onshore tomorrow afternoon to cool us back down.”

All times ET. Bold = featured group.

• 9:00 a.m.: Dylan Wu, Jacob Bridgeman
• 9:11 a.m.: Chris Gotterup, Eric Lee
• 9:22 a.m.: Peter Uihlein, Caleb Surratt
• 9:33 a.m.: Marek Fleming, Robert MacIntyre
• 9:44 a.m.: Nico Echavarria, Hideki Matsuyama
• 9:55 a.m.: Bud Cauley, Neal Shipley
• 10:06 a.m.: Laurie Canter, Michael Kim
• 10:17 a.m.: Jackson Koivun, Miles Russell
• 10:33 a.m.: Patrick Rodgers, Emiliano Grillo
• 10:44 a.m.: James Nicholas, Angel Hidalgo
• 10:55 a.m.: Jordan Spieth, Joaquin Niemann
• 11:06 a.m.: Russell Henley, Dustin Johnson
• 11:17 a.m.: Ryan Fox, Michael Brennan
• 11:28 a.m.: Pierceson Coody, Max Greyserman
• 11:39 a.m.: Kurt Kitayama, Tyrrell Hatton
• 11:50 a.m.: Cameron Young, Sungjae Im
• 12:06 p.m.: Adrien Dumont de Chassart, Spencer Tibbitts
• 12:17 p.m.: J.T. Poston, Ben Griffin
• 12:28 p.m.: Andrew Putnam, John Parry
• 12:39 p.m.: Jackson Van Paris, Ben James
• 12:50 p.m.: Tommy Fleetwood, Ludvig Åberg
• 1:01 p.m.: Keegan Bradley, Johnny Keefer
• 1:12 p.m.: Ben Kohles, Justin Rose
• 1:28 p.m.: Corey Conners, Aaron Rai
• 1:39 p.m.: Zac Blair, Max McGreevy
• 1:50 p.m.: Niklas Nørgaard, Alex Fitzpatrick
• 2:01 p.m.: Scottie Scheffler, Brian Harman
• 2:12 p.m.: Maverick McNealy, Rory McIlroy
• 2:23 p.m.: Keith Mitchell, Akshay Bhatia
• 2:34 p.m.: Gary Woodland, Ryo Hisatsune
• 2:50 p.m.: Ryder Cowan, William Mouw
• 3:01 p.m.: Sahith Theegala, Sam Burns
• 3:12 p.m.: Harry Higgs, Justin Thomas
• 3:23 p.m.: Collin Morikawa, Tom Kim
• 3:34 p.m.: Sam Stevens, Xander Schauffele
• 3:45 p.m.: Matt Fitzpatrick, Wyndham Clark

Read it here: Wyndham Clark leads 126th U.S. Open as all-star leaderboard looks to strike entering weekend