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22

Jul
Sun

British Open: Five questions for Sunday

LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England -- Through three rounds, Royal Lytham & St. Annes has give us a tremendous leader board. How will it all shake out by Sunday evening? We take a look at five burning questions entering the final round. 1. Will we finally see some "British Open weather"? If you believe the weather forecast, then yes. Sunny skies should greet the leaders as they tee off, but the most wind of any of the four rounds is predicted for today. A steady 15-20mph southwest breeze is expected with isolated gusts up to 35mph a possibility after 3 p.m. local time. With the final group teeing off at 2:30, we could be in for a wild finish. Related: The winners and losers from Day 3 at the Open 2. Can Tiger mount a charge? So far, he's faithfully stuck to his conservative game plan. It will be interesting to see if that changes, though, facing a five-shot deficit to begin the final round. The stronger winds could make things even trickier, possibly forcing the man who has hit driver just five times in three days to go to the big stick more often. Keep in mind too that the 14-time major winner didn't collect any of those trophies by coming from behind and at the last major, he entered the final round in similar position before playing the first six holes at six over. On Woods' side? There's only one guy with a substantial lead over him. Which brings us to... 3. Is it finally Adam Scott's time? It's been nearly a decade since a 23-year-old Scott burst onto the scene with his first PGA Tour win and backed that up with a win at the Players in 2004. Multiple major championships seemed inevitable for the man with a seemingly identical swing to Tiger Woods circa 2000. But other than a close call at Augusta in 2011, Scott -- currently ranked No. 13 in the world -- hasn't even contended in one of golf's biggest events. After a bogey-free 68 in the third round that gave him a four-shot lead, Scott said he'd draw from that experience in which he played well down the stretch, but was caught by Charl Schwartzel. If he plays anything at all like he has the first three days, though, he'll be nearly impossible to catch this time. 4. Can G-Mac get major No. 2? For a second-straight major, McDowell will tee off last thanks to playing his last 11 holes on Saturday in four-under par. He played solidly in the final round of last month's U.S. Open at Olympic Club before coming up one shot short of Webb Simpson. Making up four shots will be difficult, but the man from Northern Ireland has proven he has what it takes. In the 2010 U.S. Open, McDowell played in the final group with Dustin Johnson and wiped away a three-shot lead to claim his first major. Of course, he got a lot of help that day from DJ, but the point is that he relishes these types of pressure-packed opportunities. Related: The PGA Tour's Year of the Comeback 5. Will the string of first-time major winners come to an end? It doesn't look like it with Scott holding a four-shot lead, but in a year that has has already seen more than its fair share of comebacks, anything is possible. Should Scott stumble, it's more than likely that this unprecedented run of nine consecutive maiden major winners will come to a halt. Of the next five players on the leader board, only Brandt Snedeker is without a major. And who started this stretch? A certain Northern Irishman playing in the final pairing. . . -- Alex Myers Follow @AlexMyers3 !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

22

Jul
Sun

Final-Round Flameouts

A look at recent examples of contenders crumbling on Sunday at major championships.

21

Jul
Sat

What the stats project for Day 4 at the Open Championship

Eight notable third-round stats that indicate how the Open Championship might unfold Sunday, provided by Golf World contributing writer Brett Avery, who compiles the Rank and File statistical sections for the magazine's coverage of the major championships and other significant events.Graeme McDowell had never broken par the first three days of a major until this year's British Open. Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images 1. This week marks the fifth time in 46 major-championship appearances that Adam Scott has broken par in each of the first three rounds. This is the third time he has accomplished the feat in the Open Championship and his 11-under 199 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes brought his first career 54-hole lead in a major. Scott's four earlier sub-par weeks, however, were hardly crucibles in the thick of contention: -- 2004 PGA (Whistling Straits): Began 71-71-69 and stood T-11, trailing Vijay Singh by seven strokes; closed with even-par 72 for T-9. -- 2005 Open (St. Andrews): Began 70-71-70 and stood T-20, trailing Tiger Woods by seven; closed with three-over 75 for T-34. -- 2006 Open (Royal Liverpool): Began 68-69-70 for T-8, trailing Woods by four; closed with even-par 72 for T-8. -- 2006 PGA (Medinah): Began 71-69-69 and stood T-12, trailing Luke Donald and Woods by seven; closed with a five-under 67 for T-3. The '06 PGA was 23 starts ago -- a span equaling half of his major-championship career. In that time Scott has missed the cut in seven majors and made the top 10 only three times. Those latter performances are recent, though: T-2 in the '11 Masters, where he broke par in the last three rounds (72-70-67-67); solo seventh in the '11 PGA at Atlanta AC, where he broke par all but Saturday (69-69-70-68); and T-8 in this year's Masters (75-70-73-66). Related: Obscure British Open facts 2. As with Scott, this could mark the first time returning four sub-par rounds in a major for Graeme McDowell, who began 67-69-67 and shares second with Brandt Snedeker at seven-under 203. McDowell had never broken par the first three days of a major and only once bettered it on the first two days. During the '10 Open at St. Andrews, a month after claiming the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, McDowell began 71-68 and shared seventh, seven shots behind eventual winner Louis Oosthuizen. McDowell spiraled to 76-70 and tied for 23rd. 3. Scott is flirting with his lowest total in relation to par in his major-championship career. He finished 12 under in the '06 PGA (276) and '11 Masters (276). Unless something disastrous happens, Scott will break par over 72 holes in a major for a 10th time, including six of his last 10 starts. 4. According to the PGA Tour database, Scott and McDowell have been paired together only once in a tour event. It happened during the final round of the 2005 WGC-Cadillac Championship at Harding Park in San Francisco. McDowell shot two-under 68 and tied for sixth while Scott's 74 tied for 29th. Tiger Woods won at 10-under 270. 5. Since the 1958 Open, the 54-hole leader/co-leader has won 30 of 54 times, including Louis Oosthuizen at St. Andrews in 2010 and Darren Clarke at Royal St. George's last year. In the first 10 Opens at Lytham, the men ahead after three rounds logged six triumphs: Peter Thomson in 1958, Bob Charles in '63, Tony Jacklin in '69, Gary Player in '74, Tom Lehman in '96 and David Duval in 2001. Related: Know your British Open courses 6. The promise of the Day 3 item concerning midway leader Brandt Snedeker's recent performance following an extremely low round met a bitter end. Since his heartbreaking T-3 in the '08 Masters, Snedeker has shot nine 63s and 64s in PGA Tour competition. The day after those scores he failed to break par only twice. Snedeker, who shot 64 in Friday's second round, avoided bogey for his first 40 holes. But Saturday he dropped six shots between the fifth and 14th holes and returned a 73. Birdies at the 16th and 18th allowed him to avoid shooting his highest next-day in that stretch, a 74 in this year's Farmers Insurance. Statistics can buttress both the case that Snedeker has a marvelous opportunity to succeed from four shots behind Scott or has little chance to remain a factor: Pro: His three tour wins involved last-round rallies from five shots (2007 Wyndham), six shots (2011 Heritage) and seven shots ('12 Farmers, won in a playoff). Con: This will be Snedeker's 12th Sunday round in a major. In his first 11 tries he's averaged 72.818 and broken par only in the '11 Masters (70 for T-15) and '11 U.S. Open (69 for T-11). He played in the '08 Masters' final pairing but posted 77. 7. Next up: Tiger Woods, whose par 70 put him in solo fourth at 204, five behind Scott. Among his incentives for winning this week: -- Fourth Open title (2000, '05, '06) would match the output of Tom Morris Sr., Tom Morris Jr., Willie Park Sr., Walter Hagen and Bobby Locke and trail only Harry Vardon (six), James Braid, John H. Taylor, Peter Thomson and Tom Watson (five each). -- A 15th career major triumph would leave him three behind Jack Nicklaus -- He would become the first man in PGA Tour history with more than $100 million in official earnings. Woods entered the week with $99,037,940. First prize is £900,000, or roughly $1.4 million. Related: Unlikely British Open champions 8. For a third day the wind remained all but absent, allowing a field average of 71.807. The players hit a combined 63.6 percent of fairways and 60.1 percent of greens, and averaged 29.52 putts. The rough cost an average of 0.543 strokes for every shot hit from it. All those figures are virtually identical to the first two rounds. The outlook for Sunday promises wind -- and plenty of it. Anyone who has spent time in Britain knows Met Office weather forecasts are subject to frequent and potentially vast revisions. That said, according to an R&A press release the seven-hour window during which the Open should be decided (1200 to 1900 local time, 7 a.m.-4 p.m. in the Eastern U.S.) calls for south-to-southwest winds of 10-15 mph, increasing to 15-20 mph and gusting 25-35 mph. That direction is almost 180 degrees opposite of what little wind the field has encountered the first three days. One hint of how significantly such winds would affect play can be gleaned from the 2001 Open at Lytham. Thursday was mostly overcast, breezy and cool and resulted in a 73.128 average (2.128 strokes over par because No. 6 played as a par 5). With scant wind and cloudy skies the rest of the week, the field averaged 72.416 Friday, 71.414 Saturday and 72.657 Sunday. Such a small variation may seem insignificant, but the difference between calm and "breezy" conditions is far less than between calm and 35-mph gusts. -- Brett Avery Follow @BWAvery !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

21

Jul
Sat

With time running out, Woods shows no signs of straying from plan

LYTHAM & ST. ANNES, England -- He's won Grand Slam tournaments employing this sort of safety-first strategy before, of course. The Hoylake Open of 2006 springs to mind. En route to his third -- and most recent -- victory in the game's oldest championship, Tiger Woods used his driver only once during a 72-hole master class of superior ball striking. And this week is similar. So far, the longest club in his bag has made only five appearances, as the 14-time major champion has plotted his way around a sadly soft and almost becalmed Royal Lytham.Photo: Warren Little/R&A Which is fine. It would be difficult to criticize anyone who has played well enough to shoot six under par for 54-holes around a course of such quality and who has an obvious chance of victory over the final 18. Even if he does have no history of coming from behind to win any of the game's four most important events. But, quite apart from the five-shot deficit and the two men between him and the leader, two other potential problems are looming over the Woods horizon. First if Sunday's weather forecast is accurate -- admittedly a big 'if' based on previous predictions this week -- and the prevailing wind does blow with something resembling force, then Woods' notoriously unreliable driver will be forced into action, especially over Lytham's tough finishing holes. At the likes of 14, 15, 17 and 18, reaching the greens in regulation will be possible only after drives that are at least a little bit better than his average. Spraying into the rough will be fatal to that aim, even if he is hitting his approach shots from spots 50-yards ahead of his targets on days one thru three. Related: The best and worst from Saturday at the British Open And second, with those five shots to make up on a leader showing little if any signs of weakness, Woods may be forced into hitherto unfamiliar aggression in a late effort to catch a man who, ironically, employs Tiger's old swing, coach and caddie. Then again, it should not go unnoticed that Adam Scott is the first Australian in 16 years to lead going into the last round of any major championship. Greg Norman was the last to do so, at Augusta in 1996 -- and we all remember what happened there. On the plus side, Woods' ball-striking has been impressive this week, definitely more Bay Hill 2012 than Pebble Beach; more Muirfield Village than Quail Hollow; and more Congressional than Greenbrier. He doesn't yet resemble the totally dominating figure of 2000, but those days, it can be argued, are gone forever. While his play tee-to-green remains sturdy enough, there is no doubt that Woods putted significantly better under coach Butch Harmon than he did under Hank Haney. And that trend has continued. His work on the greens while working with Haney was noticeably superior to now, under Sean Foley. Related: How Tiger's swing has changed That's not to say Woods has become a bad putter. Because he has not. But he is no longer a man who makes more than his fair share of mid-range putts. In fact, he makes fewer than what would represent an equitable allocation. No longer does his ball run smoothly and aggressively at the hole with the impetus to take it maybe a foot past its target. Instead, too many putts tend to dribble up short of the cup and either left or right. The old aphorism, "never up, never in" has never been more apposite. All of which is why Woods does not spread-eagle fields any more. The days of eight, ten and 12-shot wins are over and, almost certainly, gone forever. Those runaways are the product of short game superiority -- particularly putting -- not a long game that is even significantly better than the rest. At the top level of the game, it simply isn't possible to separate oneself through ball-striking alone. Related: 10 burning questions from the 2012 British Open Anyway, as far as Woods himself is concerned, all that matters is that the final round of this 141st Open represents a genuine chance to record a 15th major victory, a number only three less than Jack Nicklaus' record total. Certainly, he wasn't admitting defeat, or that his strategy so far has been in any way flawed. "I've just got to execute my game plan," he said. "I know the forecast is one thing, but let's see what actually happens. Whether the wind blows or not, I've still got to go out there and post the round that I know I need to post. I don't know the number I will need; that depends on what happens and the conditions. But in either case, I just have to go out and execute my plan." -- John Huggan Follow @JohnHuggan !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

21

Jul
Sat

Media: 'Will be most difficult round...of Scott's life'

(Getty Images) The media focus on the back nine on Saturday turned to Sunday by virtue of Adam Scott's growing lead in the British Open -- four strokes over Graeme McDowell and Brandt Snedeker and five over Tiger Woods. On Twitter, Nick Faldo asked the question that ESPN's crew had been asking: "Is it good or bad for Adam Scott not to be playing with Tiger?" ESPN's Sean McDonough suggested that it was better that Scott would not be paired with Woods on Sunday (he'll be paired with Graeme McDowell, instead). "Andy North," McDonough said, "would you agree with the talk that if it ends this way and Adam is not paired with Tiger Woods that that would benefit Adam tomorrow, that that's one distraction he doesn't have to worry about?" North, a two-time U.S. Open champion, dismissed it as a media talking point. "That's a lot of talk as far as we're concerned," he said. "He'd be concerned about trying to find a way to win an Open championship." It does seem unlikely that the degree of difficultly of attempting to win your first major championship would decrease simply because you're not paired with Woods, unless, of course, Woods begins making birdies by the bushelful. But to do so... ...Will Woods have to alter his strategy? After Scott birdied the 11th hole to open a five-stroke lead over Woods, Azinger said it was time for Woods to abandon his strategy of using irons off most tees. "That tee shot that Tiger just hit that'll be the last one he hits, I think, where he keeps that conservative mentality," Azinger said. "I think it's time for Tiger to step it up and not let Adam Scott get too far out in front." The five-shot deficit might force him to at some point on Sunday, but isn't it likely that he has not previously altered his strategy because of a lack of faith in his ability to keep the ball in play with his driver? Azinger on Scott "He's been a marquee player for a long time now. One of his first wins early on was the Australian Open. Beat Greg Norman when he was 19 years old, I believe. Adam Scott, he knows his way around the press room. He knows the right things to say. He's not going to say anything that is stupid. [But] he's still going to have to talk to 300 members of the media. That's part of the difficulty, all the questions, never having done it, what's it going to mean to you. "Stevie Williams [his caddie] will help Adam Scott tomorrow a great deal, I'm sure. It's not a gimme. We've seen some big leads lost recently by a 54-hole leader. "Tomorrow will probably be the most difficult round of golf of Adam Scott's life."

21

Jul
Sat

Relishing the Open vibe, Calcavecchia still hanging around

Mark Calcavecchia and his caddie/wife Brenda during the third round of the British Open. Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England -- J.H. Taylor's record appears safe, but that doesn't mean Mark Calcavecchia still isn't having a good time at the 141st British Open. For a brief period Saturday during the third round at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, Calcavecchia was on a roll, making the turn at three-under 31 and in sight of the leaders 23 years after his Open triumph at Royal Troon. Related: 10 rules from Mark Calcavecchia A rollercoaster back nine severely diminished the 52-year-old's chance of breaking Taylor's record for longest gap between British Open wins (19 years). But it didn't dim his enthusiasm for being in the fray. "Even if I hadn't won in '89, this is my favorite tournament that I've ever played in, even when I don't play so well, like last year when I missed the cut," Calcavecchia said after shooting 69. "I still love this tournament. The atmosphere is the best there is, even better than Augusta and even better than the U.S. Open." Related: Unlikely British Open Champs Calcavecchia bogeyed the 11th and double-bogeyed the 12th, but bounced back with two straight birdies before another bogey at 15. "It was adventuresome," Calcavecchia said, grateful that the weather has been pretty docile for three days. "If it would have been [windy] like it was Wednesday, you'd have seen some guys completely lose their mind. I teed off at 6:15 in the morning and it was blowing about 30. It was brutal. It's tiring to play this course, but at least it wasn't like that." Related: Mark Calcavecchia's Palm Beach, Fla. Tied for 10th as play wound down Saturday, Calcavecchia was looking forward to a good night's sleep and another try at Lytham Sunday. "I've got eight more years of this," Calcavecchia said of his past champion's exemption into the Open, "and I'll be looking forward to every one of them." -- Bill Fields Follow @BillFields1

21

Jul
Sat

Video: Tiger Woods' chip-in on 18 at the British Open

Never one to shy away from the dramatic, Tiger Woods turned an ordinary round into a water-cooler conversation piece with one swing of the club. Woods' chip-in from the greenside bunker on 18 landed him in solo third-place heading into the weekend. -- Derek Evers Follow @derekevers !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

21

Jul
Sat

British Open: Five questions for Saturday

LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England -- There's been plenty to talk about through two days at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. What are the burning questions entering Day 3? We take a look. 1. What's the weather forecast? The third round began with sunny skies and virtually no wind giving this Open Saturday the feel of last week's John Deere Classic. Amazingly, this weather is supposed to hold -- at least for today, with isolated gusts of wind up to 15mph possible late in the afternoon. For players able to avoid Royal Lytham's 205 bunkers and thick rough, low scores should be very attainable. Related: The winners and losers from Friday at the Open 2. What can we expect from Tiger Woods? Woods was in contention at the last major championship before collapsing over the weekend at Olympic -- the first time he failed to close the deal when holding a lead at the 36-hole mark in a major. He may not lead this week, but with just two major-less names ahead of him, he's the odds-on-favorite to most heading into the final two rounds. Woods, who has three wins on the PGA Tour in his last eight starts, has been very conservative off the tee, ranking 73rd in driving distance (266.5 yards) among the 83 players who made the cut. That has allowed him to miss just two fairways through two days and has left him in a good spot on the leader board, but you have to wonder if he'll stick to that game plan if others around him are capitalizing on the easy scoring conditions. 3. Can Brandt Snedeker keep this up? "Sneds" entered this event having missed the cut in all three of his previous British Opens and having never even broken par in a single round. However, the three-time PGA Tour winner has been flawless through two days to become the first player since Woods at the 2000 Open Championship to play a bogey-free first 36 holes at a major championship. The biggest reason for this turnaround is probably the lack of usual British Open conditions so far this week. Keeping a blemish off his card for a third-straight round seems unrealistic, but with another day of not having to battle the elements on tap, there's no reason to think Snedeker -- and his hot putter -- can't stay on top. Related: Conservative Tiger ends Friday with a bang 4. Who is the most dangerous player outside of the top three? Jason Dufner has quietly been the most consistent player in the past four major championships. He nearly won the PGA Championship, was a co-leader through 36 holes at Augusta National, and played perhaps the best of anyone from tee to green at the U.S. Open. Amid all that, he also picked up his first two PGA Tour wins at the Zurich Classic and the Byron Nelson. Whereas his putter let him down at Olympic Club, it shouldn't be as much of a factor on Royal Lytham's softer, flatter greens. Related: The most unlikely Open champs ever 5. Who the heck is Thorbjorn Olesen?! For today, he'll simply be known by most as that guy playing with Tiger Woods in the second-to-last group. However, there's a good chance we'll hear more from the Dane, who plays on the European Tour and is currently 112th in the Official World Golf Ranking, in the future. Just 22 and already a winner of the Sicilian Open earlier this year, he fired a second-round 66 to move into solo fourth at five-under par. Perhaps more impressively, Olesen birdied 18 knowing he had to if he wanted to tee it up with his idol on Saturday. Careful what you wish for, young man. . . -- Alex Myers Follow @AlexMyers3 !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

21

Jul
Sat

The 2012 U.S. Open: Saturday''s Birdies And Bogeys

Who were the winners and losers on Saturday of the Open Championship? Let's take a closer look with another edition of birdies and bogeys.

20

Jul
Fri

What the stats project for Day 3 at the Open Championship

Ten notable second-round stats that indicate how the Open Championship might unfold Saturday, provided by Golf World contributing writer Brett Avery, who compiles the Rank and File statistical sections for the magazine's coverage of the major championships and other significant events.1. Comparisons between midway leaders Brandt Snedeker and Sir Nick Faldo, and how they scored record-low 130s in Open Championships 20 years apart, are imprecise because of different layouts for Snedeker (Royal Lytham & St. Annes) and Faldo (Muirfield). That said, here goes: -- Relation to par: Snedeker -10, Faldo -12-- Eagles: Snedeker 0, Faldo 2 (including a 25-yard chip-in at No. 5 Thursday)-- Birdies: Snedeker 10, Faldo 10-- Bogeys: Snedeker 0, Faldo 2 (No. 1 Thursday, No. 7 Friday)-- Lead: Snedeker by one over Adam Scott, Faldo by three over Gordon Brand Jr. and John CookFaldo's 130 broke the longstanding mark of 132 set by Henry Cotton in 1932 at Royal St. George's and tied by Faldo (67-65) and Greg Norman (66-66) in 1990 at St. Andrews. Faldo shot two-under 69 in the third round at Muirfield to total 199, tying his own 54-hole record from two years earlier at the Old Course. And his closing 73 gave him a one-shot victory over Cook (66-67-70-70), making only his third Open start -- but first in a dozen years. Faldo made it dramatic Sunday with bogeys at the 11th, 13th and 14th before birdies at the 15th and 17th. Those dropped shots cost him the honor of being the first man in Open history with four rounds in the 60s.2. Hints on how Snedeker will fare in the third round at Lytham might come from how he's recently handled the day after shooting an extremely low round. Since his disappointing tie for third in the 2008 Masters (69-68-70-77), where he played in the final group each of the last two days, Snedeker has shot 63 twice and 64 seven times in PGA Tour competitions. (Strangely enough, Snedeker's produced all those in first or second rounds.) Snedeker has backed up those 63s and 64s with a 68.667 next-round average. Those returns include a 65 (second round of the '10 Wyndham), three 67s, a 68 and two 69s. Then again, he's also rambled into the 70s twice in his last three opportunities, shooting a Saturday 72 at the '11 Deutsche Bank (T-3) and a Saturday 74 at this year's Farmers Insurance (won playoff). Related: Know your British Open courses 3. Then again, this is the sixth time he's held the 36-hole lead in a PGA Tour event. He's wound up in the top 10 each time but they did not lead to any of his three career wins.4. It's never too early to obsess about World Rankings at the Open. First, there's the not inconsequential fact that the last three winners rose from outside the top 30 (Stewart Cink 33rd, Louis Oosthuizen 54th, Darren Clarke 111th). Then there's the curve ball that the Open has a major-leading four champions from outside the top 100 since the rankings' first full season in 1987 (John Daly 109th, Paul Lawrie 159th, Ben Curtis 396th, Clarke).--10 under: Snedeker is ranked 29th--Nine under: Scott 13th--Six under: Tiger Woods fourth--Five under: Thorbjorn Olesen 112th--Four under: Paul Lawrie 31st, Matt Kuchar eighth, Graeme McDowell 12th, Jason Dufner seventh--Three under: Ernie Els 40th, Thomas Aiken 136th--Two under: Steven Alker (a local qualifier) T-789th, Luke Donald first, Steve Stricker 14th, Jim Morrison 218th.Related: Obscure open Championship facts5. Speaking of rankings, Woods has won 11 of his majors as world No. 1. The exceptions were the 1997 Masters (13th), '99 PGA (second) and 2005 Masters (second). And in case the number 11 sounds magical: This was the 18th time Woods (67-67) broke par in each of the first two rounds at a major championship, but the first time since the '11 Masters (71-66, T-4). Of the first 17 occasions, Woods won 11 times.6. The first time Adam Scott broke par in a major was in 2001 at Lytham, when he posted a 70 in the third round (par then was 71) en route to a tie for 47th. Saturdays, however, have given him problems of late in the game's biggest events. The Australian has broken par on only two of the last 17 third rounds, dating to the '08 U.S. Open (71 in'10 PGA, T-39; 67 in '11 Masters, T-2). And this marks the first time Scott will play in the last pairing on the weekend at a major.7. Tom Watson made the cut on the number (three-over 143). It is the sixth time he's made the weekend in his last eight Opens. Watson's 63rd birthday is September 4. He extended his own record as the oldest competitor to make an Open cut. And, as if all that is not enough, in his last 10 weekend rounds at the Open he's averaged 71.700.8. Looking forward a few years, as the game's epicenter shifts gradually from North America to far-flung points, Anirban Lahiri (68-72, T-28) and Jeev Milka Singh (70-71, T-40) became the first players from India to make the cut in an Open.9. The field's scoring average Friday was 72.013, fractionally above the first round, and left the 36-hole average at 71.798. The third hole was the day's toughest (4.564, four birdies), followed by the sixth (4.410, five birdies), 15th (4.391, 10 birdies) and eighth (4.256, 12 birdies). The 13th was easiest (3.840, 42 birdies), followed by the 16th (3.859) and ninth (2.904). The field hit 65.5 percent of fairways, 60.4 percent of greens, took 29.52 putts and lost an average of 0.551 shots on every stroke out of the rough.10. Last and, certainly the way he played, least is the case of Phil Mickelson (73-78), the No. 16 player in the world who tied for 146th in the 156-man field. His 151 matched his third-highest 36-hole total in a major (155 at Carnoustie in the '99 Open, 152 at Turnberry in the '94 Open, 151 at Oakmont in the '07 U.S. Open). It also meant Mickelson's eighth career missed cut in a major but his first since the '07 Open. The rankings of the players below him in the scoring summary: 1070th, 217th, 253rd, 1144th, 221st, 101st, T-1448th, T-1448th, T-1448th.-- Brett Avery Follow @BWAvery !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");