Day 3 in Blaine
Keep that card
Max Homa: Hours after posting a bloated 78 in Round 2 of the Memorial last weekend, Homa logged into his Twitter account and posted, "The game is close. Working too hard not to see a breakthrough soon." Eight days later, it arrived. Homa carded a 7-under 64 on Saturday, shooting him 19 spots up the leaderboard and into contention three shots off the leaders heading into the final round.
Toss that card
Bo Van Pelt: A feel-good story through the first two rounds — Van Pelt made an ace on Thursday and entered the weekend 9 under — he gave it all back on Saturday. Van Pelt carded back-to-back double bogeys on Nos. 9 and 10 that spelled a 5-over round, the worst score among the 68 players who made the cut.
Key hole
Par-4 16th, 283 yards: Tour officials moved the tee box up more than 100 yards for Saturday's round, making it easily reachable for the pros. They responded. There were just two bogeys all day at No. 16. There were five eagles. CBS analyst Nick Faldo called it "a big par 3." He was right; the field played 16 to an average of 3.309.
Chip shots
• Despite windy conditions, 53 of the 68 players finished their rounds under par on Saturday.
• Tony Finau, who hasn't three-putted in 137 consecutive holes, enters Sunday two shots off the lead. Finau has the most top-eight finishes (24) of any player without a win on the PGA Tour in the last four seasons .
• Charl Schwartzel, also two shots behind, is the only player to make birdie or better on every par-5 hole this week.
• Michael Thompson and Richy Werenski co-lead at 15 under, the same leading score Bryson DeChambeau, Collin Morikawa and eventual winner Matthew Wolff had after 54 holes of last year's 3M Open.
• Thompson's bogey on the 17th hole broke a string of 23 consecutive holes without a blemish.
• The top two players (not otherwise exempt) in the top 10 and ties after Sunday will be invited to the 2020 U.S. Open; in the event of a tie, the higher-ranked player entering the week in the Official World Golf Rankings will earn the spot.
Quote of the day
"It's a total different test than this one, a lot of yellow lights and red lights at Muirfield. A lot of green lights out here, foot on the pedal."
— Harris English, on the difference between last weekend and this weekend on tour.
Tweet of the day
"Tony Finau can make you angry ! Plays so well but just can't sustain it for the full four days."
— @Ryan29Moon
Day 4
After using split tees and going out in threesomes Saturday because of a threat of weather, it's a single tee start in pairs on Sunday. Someone is going home with 500 Fed Ex Cup points and $1.188 million in his pocket. Golf Channel takes the air at noon. Ch. 4 takes over at 2 p.m. The final group tees off at 12:55 p.m.
Brian Stensaas
