Mike's Blog - U.S. Open Round 3

Today was another long day at Bethpage Black. I thought we were going to play early in the morning but the overnight rain was just too much for this course to take.  It was already wet but that rain made it really sloppy. Even with the delay, I couldn't believe that we played as I thought the place would be just underwater - it's rained so much here this week. The greens crew must have put in a long night and morning to get it into condition where we could play - and believe me, we all wanted to play as it's been a long week here.
When I got out to play, my driver was giving me trouble. I haven't had a great week with it but I've been getting a lot of breaks so it hasn't hurt me too much. Today, though, was a different story. I had a tough time early on finding the fairways and that caught up with me. You can't get away with that at any U.S. Open and here it's the same. If I can get the ball in the fairway, I have been able to give myself some good chances at birdie but Sunday I had a tough time doing that.
I also wasn't able to get any putts to drop as I had the first two days. Near the end of the round, I started to get a better feel for both the driver and the putter. I started hitting fairways and I hit it really close on 18 but just missed that putt. 
I hope that my good play on the last few holes of round three and the start of round four (it feels strange to be talking about round three on Sunday!) is what I'll build on starting on Monday. Even with the bogey I made at the start of my fourth round, I don't think I'm too far back to make a run. I shot 64 with a double so I know the low round is out there. I feel good about where I am after three rounds and a bit and I will try to get out to an early start on Monday and make something happen.
This has been a tough week on all the players. It's difficult to get into any kind of rhythm with all the stops and starts. You never really know when you're going to play or how much you're going to play so you just have to be prepared with the time comes. But it certainly doesn't feel like a U.S. Open. We're used to having hard and fast conditions and with all the rain, that certainly isn't the case here.
I am looking forward to finishing up tomorrow and then heading to Quebec City for the Telus Skins Game. That's another event that's been affected by the rain here.

As always, thanks for your support
Mike