Photo credit: Jeremy Harness

By Jeremy Harness

PEBBLE BEACH – Spyglass Hill was supposed to be the course where players look to survive until they got to another course where scoring was more allowable.

Paul Casey defied that logic on a drier third round on Saturday.

A day after play was called due to continuous rain turned the greens into lakes and transformed holes into water buckets, Mother Nature pumped the brakes on the rain – with the exception of a 30-minute interval slightly after noon – and Casey accelerated his play.

Casey, fresh off his 64 at Monterey Peninsula Friday, put himself in the lead by shooting two-under on the front nine at Spyglass Hill and then making another birdie at the par-5 11^th to get to 13-under overall and give himself a two-shot lead.

He kept rolling in birdies on the back nine, picking up shots at the 14^th as well as the 15^th to increase his lead to three. He parred out the rest of the way to finish with a five-under 67.

Phil Mickelson appeared to go backwards, and it looked as if he would fall out of contention. He was up and down on his front nine at Pebble, with three birdies and three bogeys, and with his driving accuracy slipping even more than it did Friday after a perfect driving round Thursday, he dropped another shot at the par-4 10^th to fall to nine-under and six shots behind.

However, he got things on track immediately following that, and he recovered from a tee shot into the bunker to make birdie at the 13^th before a magnificent second shot nearly found the hole at the par-5 14^th. He sank the ensuing three-foot eagle putt, and he ended up closing with a two-under round of 70 and only trails Casey by three shots and is currently in second place.

Lucas Glover, one of the guys in a tie for the lead after Friday and whose big win on the PGA Tour was the 2008 U.S. Open, tried to keep pace with Casey, picking up two shots on his first nine at Monterey Peninsula, thanks to four birdies in a row at holes 14 through 17.

However, he fell back a bit after a pair of bogeys against one birdie on his second nine, and he finished with a one-under 70 and four shots behind Casey.

Jordan Spieth held his ground for the first four holes at Pebble Beach and then picked up a shot after rolling in an eight-footer for birdie at the par-3 fifth. He appeared to have run into trouble after hitting his second shot into the ocean at the next hole and then left himself a 20-footer for par.

However, he knocked in the lengthy putt to keep himself in the mix.

He held up just fine through 12 holes, but that’s when the wheels started to wobble, as he lost control off the tee. He double-bogeyed the 13^th, and even though he quickly rebounded with a birdie at the 14^th, he bogeyed the par-3 17^th and then hooked his tee shot at the par-5 18^th into the ocean and ended up with another double bogey to finish with a two-over round of 74.

Saturday morning was not only dry, but there was nothing but blue sky to be seen all around the golf course, and spectators took advantage by getting as many pictures as they could of celebrities such as hockey star Wayne Gretzky, country singer Jake Owen and actor Bill Murray.

However, that lasted only a few hours, as the skies turned gray at around 11:30, and by noon, the rain began to pour onto the course. This time, however, the rain stopped at about 12:30 pm and held off while the sky cleared back up, but the wind intensified as the day progressed.