It’s Lonely at Top --and Under Par

After three days, 54 holes and enough layers of pain and suffering to pave Tobacco Road, the U.S. Open lurched toward conclusion today at a mean old place called Pinehurst that has Martha’s Vineyard left nearly every one of the finest collection of golfers in the world dazed, confused and way over par.

The leader as the fourth round begins is Payne Stewart, who made something called a birdie on the last hole to take a one-shot edge over Phil Mickelson and a two-shot margin over the corporate Tiger Woods and the corpulent Tim Herron.

Right now, Stewart stands alone. He is the only player in the field under par through 54 holes at one-under 209.

Just wondering, but if Pinehurst No. 2 is this hard, what does Pinehurst No. 1 look like? Are the holes the size of shot glasses or what?

Anyway, when Stewart’s golf ball fell into the hole after traveling 15 feet, he barely reacted. He ran the gamut of emotions, from A to B. Maybe he was out of practice, as it was his only birdie of the day.

“Somebody is going to win,” Stewart said. “It might as well be me.”

So this is how you get the lead at the U.S. Open? You shoot two over par, a 72, and then you check to see if everybody else had as much trouble as you did. Actually, nearly everyone did.

Stewart began Saturday’s third round tied with Mickelson but was as many as three shots back after the 10th hole, where he made a third consecutive bogey. But as quickly as Mickelson moved in front, he faded just as fast and needed a birdie at the 18th to be within one shot.

Herron, a 29-year-old who goes by the nickname “Lumpy,” produced a par round of 70 that was noteworthy simply because few could have predicted it. He hadn’t left many clues. In three previous U.S. Open appearances, Herron has missed two cuts and tied for 53rd.

On Saturday, Herron was under more trees than a pine cone, but he pulled himself together.

“Yeah, the U.S. Open probably isn’t my style of golf because I don’t drive it real straight, but this week I’m driving it good,” Herron said.

“You have to have a little fire in your belly. I’ve got a big enough gut to have a lot of fire in there.”

In the early going, you could almost see the smoke coming out of Woods’ ears. He began with a double bogey and a bogey, but he birdied No. 4 and then hung around with nine consecutive pars.

“I start double bogey, bogey in a regular tour event and I’d probably lose about five shots,” Woods said. “That’s U.S. Opens. You’re going to make mistakes. Hopefully you don’t do it down the stretch on Sunday. You get it over with and I got it over today.”

The field played Pinehurst in an average score of 75.97, or just about six shots over par. The 68 players totaled exactly 80 birdies, but made 720 pars, 367 bogeys, 49 double bogeys and seven triples or worse.

It was almost as if a bugle sounded and everybody started marching to the rear. On a gray day when it misted on and off, the players made their gloomy trip around the famed old course with long faces as grim as double bogeys.

There were plenty of problems, all the way around the place, especially in the morning when the wind kicked up the pine needles. And those weren’t pin placements out there, they simply showed you where the mines were planted.

“Borderline sadistic,” Scott Verplank said.

Well, yeah, they were that, all right. There were 68 players who took on Pinehurst and 67 of them failed to break par.

The only one who did was Steve Stricker, whose one-under 69 barely made it. And Stricker wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t made a 40-foot birdie putt at No. 2 or holed an eight-iron from 136 yards from a fairway bunker to eagle No. 3.

“I don’t think I shot the round of the year, but I feel great that I shot a 69,” he said. “Getting off to the start that I did really fueled my whole round.”

Even though Stricker bogeyed two of the last three holes, he still managed to move from a tie for 20th after 36 holes to a tie for fifth after 54.

Moving in the opposite direction was David Duval, who began the day tied for the lead at three under and finished it with a 75 for a two-over 212. Vijay Singh, who had a 73, is tied with Stricker and Duval.

Duval finished with 10 consecutive pars and he was happy about that, but he was considerably more worried when he went five over during a six-hole stretch, including a double bogey on No. 5.

“But even after I went five over for the day after eight holes, I figured that if I could par in, the worst case was going to be three behind,” Duval said. “I knew everybody was going to struggle. It just happened to me early.

“Nothing happened that was bad to me. I enter the final day three shots off the lead with not a whole lot of people in the way,” he said.

Of course, the guy at the top is Stewart, who is used to it by now. Stewart, the 1991 U.S. Open champion, seemed on the verge of another last year at the Olympic Club when he had a four-shot lead after three rounds, but he shot a 74 and lost to Lee Janzen by one shot.

That was a year ago, said Stewart, who said he rescued Saturday’s round with a 10-foot par-saving putt at No. 10, then affirmed that he isn’t concerned about bad memories following him from a rough-lined course in Northern California to a sandy, pine tree-lined course in North Carolina.

“I could have crawled away and hid after what happened last year or I could build on what happened and use it to strengthen myself, and that’s the avenue I chose to take.

“I didn’t want to dwell on it. I’ve never watched the tape. Why bother seeing it? I know what I did. . . . As long as I can get myself in position and deal with it better than I did last year, I know my golf game is better than it was last year.

“Yeah, there is some unfinished business.”

In that case, Stewart is like everyone else who takes on Pinehurst today. They can only hope for the best. They also should hope it doesn’t get any worse.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

U.S. OPEN LEADERBOARD

PAYNE STEWART

68-69-72--209: -1

PHIL MICKELSON

67-70-73--210: E

TIGER WOODS

68-71-72--211: +1

TIM HERRON

69-72-70--211: +1

PAGE 10

SCORES, TEE TIMES

NOTES, HOLE OF DAY