US Open / Steven Rawlings / 21 June 2009 / Leave a Comment

Three days in and the tournament's barely passed halfway. The rain keeps pounding Bethpage and a Monday finish looks a distinct possibility.

Play resumed just after midday UK time yesterday and it was a long slow grind with the main focus throughout the day being on Tiger Woods, with the big question being, could he muscle his way into contention?

Starting round two at the 10th hole he threatened to, birdies at the 18th and 1st holes, saw him matched at as low as [5.0], but when he bogeyed the third hole, as the rain made a most unwelcome return, his progress was stunted again.

He never quite seemed to be firing on all cylinders and never really made a run at the tournament. Every time he made a move forward he just seemed to check up soon after. His putting wasn't quite there and neither was his scrambling and with almost two rounds to go he trails leader Ricky Barnes by a whopping 11 shots, yet he's still only around [15.0]. Quite remarkable when you consider he needs to match Lou Grahams incredible 36 hole comeback of 1975. Besides that freak result the biggest comeback after 36 holes has been eight shots, so it's quite a mountain the great man has to climb.

When they finally finished round two, at around 9.00pm last night, Barnes had gotten to 8 under par and led by one over Lucas Glover and by two over Mike Weir, with a gap of another three shots back to rest of the field. History points to the three players that have put daylight between themselves and the rest of the field, US Open winners don't tend to come from too far back at halfway, and throughout Saturday I was sorely tempted to back Weir. He had traded around the [5.5] mark all day, but I can't quite trust him and have decided to just let it roll.

I did have a couple more bets though, backing Geoff Ogilvy at [40.0], after he birdied the 7th hole in round two to get to +1, and Stephen Ames at [150.0], after he'd finished round two.

The weather has been really cruel on those allocated an early tee-time on Thursday, and of the 15 players under par at halfway, only three of them came from that side of the draw, the best of which was Lee Westwood, currently on two under par.

Round three finally started at 10.30pm, but shortly before midnight, with ten players yet to start, torrential rain again halted proceedings. They haven't managed much third round play but enough for Ogilvy to drop a few shots and frustrate me again. I don't think I'll ever get him right!

We could now be heading for a Monday finish and it's all very frustrating. Yesterday was a long and often quite dull day but at least Lefty's still just about in contention.

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