As it stands now, the leading score is 12-under and is held by 2010 Open Champion Louis Oosthuizen, Jason Day, and amateur Paul Dunne. They hold a one shot lead over Jordan Spieth, who will be looking to make modern history tomorrow by winning three straight majors.
Today's weather conditions were perfect for low scores, seeing as there was barely any wind and only a small amount of rain. We saw players taking advantage of this and going really low with their scores, such as Marc Leishman and Padraig Harrington who shot a 64 and 65 respectively. Due to this, there was a huge log jam of players at the top of the leaderboard. At one point, players like Padraig Harrington, Danny Willett, Jordan Spieth, and many more either co-led or were within a shot of it.
The biggest story of the day was that of amateur Paul Dunne. The Irishman, who plays college golf for UAB (like Graeme McDowell), made history today, becoming the first amateur since Bobby Jones in 1927 to lead the Open Championship after 54 holes. His accolades are well deserved; he shot a respectable 66 today and over his three rounds has made almost 90% of the GIRS and hit over 80% of fairways. He's also only dropped two shots (two bogeys) over the tournament. If he wins tomorrow, he's be making even more history. Best of luck to him.
Almost as big a story was Dustin Johnson, who shocked us all with relatively poor play today. He shot a 75 today and carded four bogeys and just a single birdie. As he said in his post-round interview, his putter was cold all day and he couldn't capitalize on many birdie opportunities. This again marks another major where we've seen Dustin fall back after leading. He said he'll need a really low round tomorrow to be in contention and win (he's T18 as of now).
Finally, here's how our picks are doing:
1) Dustin Johnson: T18 at 7-under
2) Rickie Fowler: T18 at 7-under
Rickie played well today, shooting a 66. He carded seven birdies and a bogey and like Dustin, will have to put in a bit of work to be in contention tomorrow.
Tomorrow's weather will be more prominent than what we saw today, but not nearly as bad as the first two rounds. A small wind with a chance of rain mid afternoon is what's being forecasted. We'll have to wait and see how it will affect the leaderboard.
-Nick
Toronto Golf Reviews
Can Louis Oosthuizen win back to back Open Championships at St. Andrews?
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