Stadler, Roberts, Course Firm Up

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Kettering, Ohio – The cat is out of the bag.

Not that Loren Roberts and Craig Stadler took two disparate paths to card 2-under 69s and continue their grip atop the U.S. Senior Open after Saturday's third round, both holding down the fort at aggregate 11-under 202. Or that they hold a two-stroke advantage over D.A. Weibring and Raymond Floyd on the 7,000-yard, par-71 layout. Or that they're four strokes up on Des Smyth and second round co-leader Tom Watson.

Never mind that.

Loren Roberts struck 64 percent of his fairways Saturday, leaving him bothered, but he still held part of the lead. (Steve Gibbons/USGA)

The secret is that Roberts, amazingly, has been able to stay in the hunt at all despite battling a cold and after having made a surreptitious run to Miami Valley Hospital Thursday evening. Roberts, treated for a kidney stone (that passed, by the way, around 3 a.m. Friday), has gotten little rest. But he has kept himself in contention by taking what NCR's South Course is offering even if the conditions are firming up and that his driving was suspect – five missed fairways -- during the third round.

"The golf course, in my mind, totally changed from the way it was the first two days," said Roberts, adding that he sensed a drastic change on the formerly spongy greens when he set foot on a hardened No. 1.

While the leaders on the scoreboard fluctuated, Roberts was the one constant. At one point on the backside, Floyd (2-under 69) and Roberts were tied for the lead at 9 under.

Roberts called his round "give and take all day." He shot even par on the front before making a highlight reel chip for eagle on No. 10.

Placing his drive in the right rough, he had 70 yards to the hole and chose a sand wedge. He couldn't see the ball go in from his vantage point. The ball hopped onto the front edge, ran 2 feet by and spun back, into the hole. The gallery's reaction told him something special happened.

"As soon as I hit it, I knew it came off dead perfect," said Roberts, playing in his second 50-and-over event. "It was right on line with the flag and it came off just what I felt was the right distance and the right speed."

His par save on the 457-yard, par-4 12^th may have been as important. Left off the tee into a fairway bunker, Roberts stayed left on his approach and the ball bounded down the sidehill that abuts the green. Roberts pitched to 12 feet right of the flagstick, draining one of his 26 putts of the round. Only a few minutes earlier Stadler had double bogeyed the same hole to fall, at that time, three strokes behind Roberts.

Stadler, winner of 13 PGA Tour and eight Champions Tour events, mistakenly used driver and found the right rough, then coming up short of the green. After flying the green, he two-putted for the double.

Another bogey followed on No. 13 when he three-putted from 40 feet. It left him fuming and perhaps lit a fire, because he birdied four of his last five holes. In that stretch he had two birdie putts longer than 10 feet.

When he was younger Stadler used to carry negative emotion – when it pooped up – from hole

A missed putt on the 16th green leaves Craig Stadler in a bit of a foul mood Saturday. (John Mummert/USGA)

to hole if he had made a mistake.

"You've got to allow yourself to learn to manage yourself around a golf course," he said. "And it's really something you can't teach. It's just something you learn over time.

"We mellow out as we get older and so on and so on and so on, but it's probably been a good 10 to 12 years now where it still bothers me to no end to three-putt. That's as bad as it gets for me."

Watson, coming off the Senior British Open victory, might agree ‘bad' might be the proper context for his driver. A 2-over 73 knocked him off the pace. Six fairways in regulation left him scrambling. So did a balky putter that led to 32 putts. He four-putted the par-5 sixth, which led to a double bogey.

Although four players stand in his way, he's still optimistic.

"Well, I'm still in the golf tournament," said Watson. "I can't make the mistakes I made today, that's for sure. I can only afford maybe one mistake tomorrow. That's it."

Weibring might be the guy waiting in the weeds. He's hovered near the top most of the week, moving closer Saturday with five birdies in his round. Overall, he's carded only four bogeys. Floyd, a sentimental pick because of his 1969 PGA Championship at NCR, also won't go away. When he couldn't get up and down from the left rough on No. 13, leading to a bogey, his momentum seized.

Greg Norman, at 6-under 207, created an early buzz by moving one shot out of the lead after his seventh hole. He went birdie-birdie-eagle on holes three through five, then birdied No. 7, to get as low as 8 under. His 250-yard 3-wood approach on the par-5 fifth stopped 2 feet from the hole, leading to the eagle.

"We're all competing for a championship here," said Norman. "The pressure is there and the pressure is on yourself to perform."

With firmer conditions expected Sunday, coupled with tougher hole locations, Roberts took a stab at what the winner will have to do even if it meant deflecting the attention from himself.

"You know, I would think 13 or 14, probably 14, would be the number that Craig would probably want to try and shoot tomorrow," said Roberts tongue in cheek.

Ken Klavon is the USGA Web Editor. E-mail him with questions or comments at kklavon@usga.org.