Richard Bland—the 48-year-old Englishman who’s just making his fourth-ever major start—is the storyline of the week thus far, and he’s joined in the final pairing with Russell Henley, who is also in rarified air, without a top 10 in his major career.
There are stars in the game waiting to do it: Louis Oosthuizen and Matthew Wolff start the day one back have the opportunity to get closer to the lead Saturday.
5:39 p.m.: And there’s the first real wobble of the day from Bland, who finds the right greenside bunker from the fairway on five and misses his par putt on the low side.
5:30 p.m.: It’s a birdie for Henley at the fourth, and he takes the solo lead at six-under, which is the most exciting thing happening for all of eight seconds before Rory hits the flagstick on the fly FROM 260 YARDS AWAY on 13.
RORY COMIN’! The Northern Irishman is now three-under on his round as he pitches in from the cabbage short and right of the 12th green to get within three of Bland and Henley, who are tied at five-under.
5:02 p.m.: We were about to say RORY COMIN’! But then he missed a short birdie attempt after hitting a beautiful shot on the par-3 11th.
But he doesn’t make up any ground on the lead as Russell Henley birdies the opening hole to get to six under.
And Brooks Koepka has dropped back to even after missing a short putt of his own on No.
4:28 p.m.: It’s getting tough to watch Xander Schauffele putt as he misses another easy look, this time for birdie, on No.
And Henley, despite having three PGA Tour titles at 32, has never finished in the top 10 at a major in 26 previous tries.
Meanwhile, Brooks Koepka sucked one back too much on the par-4 fifth and missed a good look at birdie.
The four-time major champions starts with a birdie at the second hole to get to 1-under, just four back of the lead.
2:58 p.m.: Paul Casey wraps up the round of the day with a birdie at the 18th hole—following bogeys at 16 and 17—to card a third-round 67 to move to even par, currently good for T-14.
With an odd number of competitors making the cut, Akshay Bhatia needed a marker to play with him in the first tee time of the day.
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