ATLANTA (AP) — Scottie Scheffler was signing for another bogey-free round when he was curious enough about the par-3 ninth hole at 270 yards. The numbers surprised him and validated his thinking about how hard it was to separate at East Lake for the Tour Championship.
The 87 players on that hole in three rounds had made two birdies and six bogeys. Do the math — he does have a degree from the McCombs School of Business at Texas — and that’s 79 pars.
“That seems very high,” Scheffler said. “It’s almost like let’s just skip it at this point. If we’re all going to make par, what’s the point in playing the hole, to be fair?”
Viktor Hovland and Ryan Gerard got a little separation at the end — Hovland with six putts of 7 feet or longer on the last six holes for a 65 and a one-shot lead over Gerard, who was bogey-free in his round of 66 — but the talk all week has been how bunched the scoring has been.
Cameron Young opened with an even-par 70 on Thursday and was in last place. After 54 holes, Kristoffer Reitan and Alex Smalley shared the basement. They were at 3-under 207.
“I feel the old golf course — before it was redone — it used to spread the field more,” McIlroy said after a 63 left him five behind. “Where this golf course is wider, the penalties of missing aren’t maybe quite as high.”
McIlroy and Ludvig Aberg referenced the PGA Championship at Aronimink. For the longest time it was wide open — seven players shared the 18-hole lead, the most in 57 years at a major. Midway through the third round, 28 players were separated by two shots.
“It’s difficult to make a ton of birdies,” said Aberg, who managed seven of them after a double bogey at the start for a 65. “It gives me a little bit of sort of Aronimink vibes.”
Aaron Rai finally pulled away to win his first major by three shots at the PGA with a 40-foot eagle putt and a 70-foot birdie putt.
“This tournament feels a lot like Aronimink, where there’s a lot of people around the lead,” McIlroy said. “It feels like you can make some birdies, but it’s like a good score is 67 and a bad score is 71. There’s like not a lot of separation of the field.”
That’s what got Scheffler’s attention, perhaps because he is the supreme ball-striker in golf and felt handcuffed by the large greens with big slopes and pins that required caution. He caught a gust to a back pin on the 17th hole Friday and could get no closer than 12 feet.
“When you have really, really large green complexes like these and they tuck the pins very close to the edges, it’s a balancing act between how much you want to bite off,” Scheffler said.
“I love seeing rewards for good shots and punishments for bad,” he said. “I think sometimes, especially when you look at these modern golf courses, they do a lot of the same stuff to the golf courses. They make the fairways bigger. They make the greens bigger. Then in order to protect par, we shove the pins up against edges.
“That’s why I think you see the scores get really close like they are this week.”
The ninth hole was maxed out at 270 yards — back tee, back pin — and Scheffler hit 5-wood just short of the green. McIlroy hit 3-iron. Players feel the best par 3s are the short ones, but Scheffler didn’t seem to mind how the ninth played for the third round.
“I actually thought it was better from the back box because you might see a few more bogeys,” Scheffler said.
Alas, no such luck Saturday — one birdie, one bogey, 27 pars.
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Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press
