ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Daniel Berger stopped making as many birdies even after a rain delay took some of the bite out of Bay Hill on Saturday. He still had a two-shot lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational when darkness kept the third round from finishing.
Berger was to return Sunday morning to face a 35-foot eagle putt on the par-5 16th. After watching Akshay Bhatia get up-and-down from a bunker for birdie to close within two, Berger handed the putter to his caddie and decided to wait 13 hours before his next putt.
Regardless of how the third round concludes, Bay Hill had that feeling of being a tournament again instead of the one-man show Berger had made it going into the weekend with a five-shot lead.
That won’t be the case for Rory McIlroy, who felt muscle spasms in his back and decided to withdraw about 30 minutes before his tee time. It was his first time withdrawing from a tournament in 13 years, though it was not likely to keep him from The Players Championship.
Scottie Scheffler likely shot himself out of the tournament. The world’s No. 1 player went from a bad start to an electric back nine of five birdies in a six-hole stretch, only for his approach on 18 out of ankle-deep rough to bounce off the bank and into the water.
That led to double bogey and a 72, leaving what likely will be a double-digit deficit.
Berger was at 13-under par — even for the round — though his two-shot lead was almost certain to grow when he returns for that eagle putt. Bhatia was 11 under with the daunting finish to come.
“It’s an uncomfortable golf course,” Bhatia said. “And it’s not going to get any easier.”
Cameron Young ran off four straight birdies to start the back nine on a Bay Hill course he has been coming to since he was in elementary school. That led to a 67, and he posted at 9-under 207 along Sepp Straka (66) and Collin Morikawa, who barely beat the darkness for his 70.
Young is pure New York, having grown up at Sleepy Hollow when his father was the head pro. But the Youngs always came to Orlando for a few months in the winter, playing out of nearby Orange Tree and spending some time at Bay Hill. He remembers one year being close enough to Tiger Woods to touch his golf clubs.
But the reach connection is The King. Young has an economics degree from Wake Forest, the alma mater of Arnold Palmer.
“I looked up at his statute going to practice every day at school,” Young said. “He had a tremendous influence on golf in general, and at Wake Forest. So yeah, it definitely is a very, very clear meaning in my head of what this tournament represents and what he represents.
“It would be a huge honor to even have a chance, honestly.”
Players felt like they were on two courses. Bay Hill was a brute before the round was halted for just over an hour because of heavy rain. With so little grass on the greens — dead grass, at that — pools of water formed quickly.
They returned to see greens a little softer, certainly not as scary to putt.
“The rain created a little bit of friction to where your ball was more rolling instead of kind of skidding is how I would describe it,” Scheffler said.
Young described the difference as substantial, enough rain to make the small blades of grass stand up enough for putts to hold their line.
“It went from what we know Bay Hill for on the weekend to just a notch below that,” he said.
Berger traded two birdies on par 5s with a pair of bogeys when he missed the green, nothing like the golf that produced 14 birdies the opening two rounds. But he kept his wits, and kept the lead.
So much depends on the putts — or putt — he takes on the 16th and the final two holes to see how the final round will shape up.
Young isn’t sure it matters.
“Anything can happen,” he said. “I don’t know what Daniel is going to do, I don’t know where I’m going to finish the day. But any time you get a golf course this difficult, and this many good players within a couple shots of each other … any one of them could take a really difficult golf course and make it look easy.”
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
