Steve Stricker’s play has been strikingly good

Steady Eddie has taken Los Angeles by storm, or at least those parts of it still dry enough to care about golf.

In a city where glitz plays best, Steve Stricker has turned it up by toning it down at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera. He is about as flamboyant as a slice of Wisconsin cheddar; also, about as effective a striker of the golf ball and manager of a golf course as you’ll find right now on the PGA Tour.

During Saturday’s third round, Stricker built a five-shot lead at 14 under par by fashioning a masterpiece of sensible shot making and shot selection. While others crumbled around him, the Madison, Wis., golfer kept his swing grooved, his eyes forward and his hands in his pockets as he walked the fairways of one of the world’s most difficult and prestigious courses.

The University of Wisconsin Badgers aren’t the only Big Red Machine currently doing their state proud in sports. Stricker’s calm and measured approach to the game is scary in its effectiveness.

Example: The famous 315-yard par-four No. 10, where the temptation is to grip it and rip it. Drive the green, two-putt for easy birdie. Of course, there is more sand than the Sahara Desert surrounding it and the green is narrow and slanted and shakes off golf balls like water off a duck’s back.

Stricker’s playing partners, Andres Romero and Dustin Johnson, gripped it and ripped it. Romero hit his drive right and had to chip up for his two-putt par. Johnson yanked it left, behind a tree, and got one of those unexplainable pro-tour free drops so he could chip and make a birdie putt.

Stricker? He didn’t even wait for the group in front to clear the green, as his go-for-it playing partners did. He told a reporter that the best thing to do was to hit the tee shot well left and over the trap, pointed to the area where Justin Rose had hit in the foursome ahead, then took out a hybrid club and hit it to within feet of where he had pointed. Then he chipped to within inches and tapped in for birdie. Efficiency had trumped excitement.

This could all unravel in Sunday’s final, of course. The golf gods can choose to torture whomever, whenever and wherever.

But were Stricker to continue to make Riviera roll over so he can scratch its belly, he has several possible monumental milestones ahead.

He finished 14 holes before they ended play because of darkness at 5:34 p.m., and will play the last four holes of his third round starting at 7 a.m., before playing the final round. That means he has 22 holes to better his 14 under and top the tournament record of 20 under par, set by Lanny Wadkins in 1985.

What appears to be an obvious top-10 finish now for the 42-year-old Stricker would be his third in the first five weeks of 2010. He had only three, combined, during a four-year stretch from 2002-2005.

Even bigger are the world rankings. Tiger Woods is No. 1, but might as well be No. 100 at the moment. Phil Mickelson is No. 2, but if Stricker wins the tournament and Mickelson finishes lower than in sole possession of fifth place, the No. 1 player in the world would effectively be Stricker.

On Wisconsin.

A cheesehead becomes golf’s big cheese. Hey, it could happen, ya know.

The day began with Mickelson making an eagle on the first hole and looking as if he would jump into the mix. Network TV had prepared fans for some L.A. glitz with pictures of Rodeo Drive, palm trees and the Hollywood sign, and a Mickelson run would serve that perfectly. But he went away, finishing with a 71 and remaining 10 shots behind, while Stricker mellowed out the proceedings.

In fact, he was so mellow that he had time to notice some deer standing around on No. 13.

Stricker, a hunter, said, “That brings back some good memories, seeing those deer and [about] being up in a deer stand.”

He also said he saw a coyote during a practice round Tuesday.

“We go hunting for those things all the time in Wisconsin,” Stricker said, “and that thing was about 30 yards away from me. We don’t have them that dumb up there.”

Coyotes best beware Sunday. Stricker will be aiming and firing.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com