10 Things to Know About Round 3 of the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst

Moving Day at Pinehurst No. 2 saw players rise and fall up and down the leaderboard on another steamy day at the 124th US Open.

Here are 10 things to know about round 3 of the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst.

Number 1: The field scoring average through three rounds is 73.103, which is nearly identical to it was through 54 holes of the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst (73.195).

Number 2: Nine of the last 10 U.S. Opens were won by a player who was among the top 2 on the leaderboard at the end of Round 3. The exception is Jon Rahm, who was T-6 after 54 holes at Torrey Pines in 2021.

Number 3: Rory McIlroy finds himself inside the top 5 on the leaderboard at the halfway point of the U.S. Open for a third year in a row. He was T-3 after 36 holes in 2022, T-3 after 36 holes in 2023 and enters today’s third round T-5. Only five other players since WWII had such  a run at the U.S. Open: Dustin Johnson (3 years in a row, 2014-2016), Scott Simpson (4, 1988-1991), Jack Nicklaus (3, 1971-1973), Arnold Palmer (3, 1962-1964) and Ben Hogan (5, 1952-1956). Johnson, Nicklaus, Palmer and Hogan all won at least once during the streak. Simpson did not. 

Number 4: Rory McIlroy enters the final round of the U.S. Open inside the top 10 for the sixth year in a row. It would be the longest such streak since Ben Hogan did that 12 times in a row, from 1940 through 1956. Six others have had a streak of six or more in a row: Walter Hagen (10, 1919-1928), Willie Anderson (9, 1898-1906), Gil Nicholls (8, 1904-1911), Bobby Jones (7, 1920-1926) and Stewart Gardner (7, 1900-1906). 

Here is McIlroy’s 54-hole rank after each of the last five U.S. Opens:

• 2019 Pebble Beach 6th T-9
• 2020 Winged Foot 7th T-8
• 2021 Torrey Pines T-4 T-7
• 2022 The Country Club T-7 T-5
• 2023 Los Angeles CC 3rd 2nd
• 2024 Pinehurst 2nd

Number 5: Rory McIlroy is tied with Patrick Cantlay for the fewest bogeys carded for the week (6). Only four previous times in his career did he have the fewest holes over par through the first 54 holes of a major championship. He did that at the 2011 Masters (finished the

tournament T-15), the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional (won by 8 shots), the 2014 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool (won by 2 shots) and at last year’s U.S. Open at Los Angeles CC (finished second).

Number 6: Each of the last four U.S. Open champions ranked among the top 5 in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee for the week: DeChambeau in 2020 (2nd in SG:OTT), Rahm in 2021 (5th), Fitzpatrick in 2022 (2nd) and Clark in 2023 (2nd). The top five players in that category for the week are Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Min Woo Lee, Ludvig Aberg and Luke Clanton.

Number 7: Bryson DeChambeau posted his seventh consecutive round of 69 or lower in major championship play. He will have a chance to tie the record on Sunday. Rickie Fowler (8 in row during 2014) and Greg Norman (8, 1993) currently share that record.

Number 8: A player has held exactly a three-shot lead entering the final round of the U.S. Open 17 times. That player has gone on to convert a victory in just 9 of those occasions, including just twice over the last seven opportunities. 

Here are those last seven such instances:

• Dustin Johnson 2010 Pebble Beach 82 T-8, lost by 5
• Retief Goosen 2005 Pinehurst 81 T-11, lost by 8
• Jim Furyk 2003 Olympia Fields 72 Won by 3
• George Burns 1981 Merion 73 T-2, Lost by 3
• Hale Irwin 1979 Inverness Club 75 Won by 2
• Frank Beard 1975 Medinah 78 T-3, lost by 1
• Miller Barber 1969 Champions GC 78 T-6, lost by 3

Number 9: Bryson DeChambeau has held at least a share of a 54-hole lead on the PGA TOUR five times:

• 2018 Memorial (outright lead), won in a playoff over Kyle Stanley and Ben An
• 2018 Northern Trust (outright lead), won by 4
• 2018 Shriners Hospitals for Children (tied for lead), won by 1 over Patrick Cantlay
• 2019 3M Open (tied for lead), finished T-2, 1 shot behind Matthew Wolf
• 2021 BMW Championship (tied for lead), lost in a playoff to Patrick Cantlay

Number 10: Players from eight countries (USA, France, Northern Ireland, Japan, Sweden, England, Korea and Canada) are among the top 10 and ties entering the final round. That is a new U.S. Open record. The previous high was seven, several times, most recently in 2015.