at one point saturday afternoon, twitter was momentarily incapacitated, no
doubt because of the fuss being made over rory mcilroy’s stellar first three
rounds in the u.s. open at congressional cc. “rory’s lead is 8!!!!“ “second
largest 54-hole lead in u.s. open history.” “biggest final-round comeback
to win a u.s. open? arnold (7-shot deficit in 1960).” for all the commotion
he caused, mcilroy certainly looked at ease on the course, his four-birdie,
one-bogey 68 indeed giving him an eight-shot lead over y.e. yang with 18
holes to play. it’s untrue that today’s round will consist of mcilroy and 71
noncompetitive markers, but it sure doesn’t look as if the masters debacle
will happen again. for one thing, even if the 22-year-old northern irishman
shoots 75 today, yang would have to shoot 67 just to tie. that’s certainly
not out of the realm of possibility, but mcilroy appears to have learned from
the final-round 80 at augusta. his focus is exemplary—he talked saturday
about giving himself “little goals throughout the round, that kept me in the
present and kept me focused on my game” and about having a killer instinct.
“you can’t get complacent. no lead is big enough,” he said. he didn’t behave
this way after three rounds at the masters. and that’s why today promises
better things. and maybe another power outage at twitter. —John Antonini
thRee;Rounds;down,;one;to;Go 01
reuters/Jason reed
coVer // contents // big pictures // 5 thingS // twitter // scoreboard // tee times // ron sirak
