We’re less than three hours into the third round of The Open Championship but it appears Royal Birkdale will be there for the taking on moving day. Colin Montgomerie made the observation early on Saturday morning, saying the players needed to feast on the Birkdale course in what had shaped up to be benign conditions.
British Open leaderboard: Birkdale defenseless and yielding low scores on Saturday
We may be in for a manic moving day at The Open, where the winds have lay down and Birkdale could be had.
Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Most of the players in the early wave of tee times are doing just that, including the player who was off first in the morning. Shaun Norris made the cut on the number and had a tee time all to himself (using a non-competing marker) on Saturday morning, going off as a single at 4:20 a.m. ET (9:20 a.m. local in Southport). Norris, playing with a nice pace with the marker, posted four birdies in his first 10 holes. That’s the kind of scoring that just wasn’t available on Friday for most of the field, and Norris is demonstrating from that very first game that a charge can be made at leader Jordan Spieth.
There are currently more players on the course under-par than over-par as the wind has died and the rains have dissipated for the moment. There may be some showers that come and go, but the winds are expected to remain light, not really exceeding 8 mph throughout the day. We’re already getting buzz from those on the ground, including Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee, that the major championship scoring record of 63 could fall. We saw two 63s last year at Royal Troon, and more than 30 times across the four majors. But no one has ever been able to break the threshold and post that 62, despite almost annual close calls, including this year at the U.S. Open.
Right there with Norris is Englishman Lee Westwood, who is working on one of the early rounds of the day. Westwood is 3-under through his first 9 holes. With the wind down, and a course that’s just over 7,000 yards, the best in the world are coming for a relatively defenseless Birkdale.
“Don’t tell Johnny [Miller] I said this, but there’s a 62 out there today.”
NBC and Golf Channel’s newest high-profile addition to their broadcast team, Phil Mickelson’s legendary looper, Jim “Bones” Mackay, backed up the observation that a record may be made. “Don’t tell Johnny [Miller] I said this, but there’s a 62 out there today,” Bones told Dan Hicks. So strap in for a birdie-fest and some potentially crazy leaderboard shuffling.
Here’s your leaderboard on Saturday:
See More:
