If you’re wondering what got into Fred Couples to make him go four under on the front nine of the third day of the U.S. Senior Open, tying for the lead with Bernhard Langer to that point, it’s a pretty easy call. At the range this morning, Couples looked to be without the back problems plaguing him through the first two days. Especially on Thursday, Couples was favoring his back early on, and he still managed to shoot par. Without that obstruction, we get the Freddie we’re seeing now.

It doesn’t hurt that the Sahalee Country Club course where the tournament is being held this year is playing much softer than in the past two days – the weather has stayed overcast all day as opposed to Thursday and Friday, when the sun came out by noon. The fairways aren’t quite as fast, and the greens are definitely holding. Expect some low scores today; it won’t just be Couples.

That said, here’s the Freddie we saw on the range this morning – the top of the swing…

…and the finish.

Jim Pike, the director of golf at Sahalee Country Club, found himself in a dream situation on Saturday morning. Pike played the third round of the U.S. Senior Open as a marker for Bill Sautter, who was in a group by himself because an odd number of players made the cut. Pike and Sautter were the first to tee off at 7:04 this morning.

An interesting coincidence — both players hit right-handed and putt left-handed.

Pike has been the director of golf at the club for 23 years, and generally shoots par at the difficult, vertical course. "It was a real treat because we don’t see these [tournament] conditions often," Pike said after the round. "I was telling Bill that this is the second time I’ve seen these conditions. The first time was during the 1998 PGA Championship."

He must have liked the conditions – Pike shot a 79 despite not having played since July 14. "I birdied the ninth hole with the crowd there, so that was pretty special," he said. "I hit a 5-iron in from about 180 yards to 4 feet and made the putt. It was a treat, especially around the clubhouse and the gallery."

Will he get to play tomorrow? "It would be great. Just go have a good time. My score doesn’t matter but it’d be a blast to go out there and play again and be a marker. Just go out, have fun and enjoy the conditions of the golf course."

When he’s not playing, Pike has been in charge of the merchandise tent – ordering gear, folding clothes, greeting players and patrons, and helping with security. But for at least one round, he got the "Cinderella story" Carl Spackler once talked about.

"It was awesome," Pike said. "It was so much fun. A lot of our members were out there cheering me on so it was pretty special for me."

It’s nice when a plan comes together. Because Fred Couples and Tom Watson both shot par with 70s on Thursday and Friday at the U.S. Senior Open, they’ll be paired on Saturday as well. It will no doubt be the marquee pairing – between Couples’ hometown support and Watson’s well-deserved demigod status, the galleries will be 10-deep all day. "Yeah, he’s got a crowd following him, doesn’t he? Loud," Watson said of Couples’ cheering section. "’[They're saying,] Come on Freddie. In the hole!’" That should only increase as the weekend crowds arrive.

Other notable twosomes (all times PST, pending any more fog delays!):

Bruce Vaughan hits his first at 8:43, paired with Rich Parker. After leading this field on Thursday, he went from 66 to 82. At +8, he’ll play for pride and a trip back to the middle.

Corey Pavin tees off with Tom Purtzer at 9:46; we’ll see if Pavin melts down for a third straight day. He’s at +7 going in, so take the over on temper tantrums.

Fred Funk goes off with Bruce Fleischer at 10:04 – the defending champion and fan favorite came back to par after shooting +6 on Thursday. It would take some low (actually, near-impossible) numbers for a run, but don’t count him out just yet.

The two last twosomes are packed with players who all went below par yesterday – Tommy Armour III and John Cook each shot 68, and they’ll tee off with matching -1 scores at 12:04. J.R. Roth (-1 as well) will be rewarded for his Friday-best 66 with a spot next to Bernhard Langer, who leads the field at -3 and put up a very nice 68.

Tune in to NBC at 1:00 PST for Saturday’s Senior Open telecast. We’ll be checking in and posting news through the day with our continuing coverage.

–We brought you the details of Bruce Vaughan‘s nightmare on the front nine, and things didn’t get any better for the U.S. Senior Open’s Day 1 leader at the turn. After shooting +5 from the fifth through ninth holes, Vaughan ended his day with a whopping 12-over 82 after shooting 66 on Thursday. Vaughan had bogeys on each of the last seven holes, and his problems off the tee continued – after making 12 of 14 fairways on the first day, he made just four on Friday. Vaughan also went from 14 to five greens in regulation. Vaughan had six more putts on the second day as well. In one day (actually 14 holes; he was even through the first four), Vaughan went from leading the tournament to two shots from missing the cut.

–As projected, that cut line was +10, leaving a few notables on the wrong side. Mark O’Meara, Ben Crenshaw, and Fuzzy Zoeller all got their walking papers.

–Bernhard Langer, on the other hand, took the lead from Vaughan at -3. The Senior British Open winner is now in position to become the first to win two straight Champions Tour majors since Tom Watson took the British and the JELD-WEN Tradition back-to-back in July and August in 2003. Langer said on Friday that the toughest part of the tournament might be behind him. "Yeah, it should get better day by day — yesterday [Thursday] was a tough day because the second and third day are usually the hardest. I had a late tee time, and my body clock was not normal. My tee time was 1:00, which was 9 p.m. on my body, playing from 9 to 2 a.m., which is tough to do, but I should be okay for the rest of the week now."

–And speaking of Watson, he stayed even with playing buddy Fred Couples – both men shot par both days, which puts them tied for fifth along with Michael Allen and Loren Roberts. "It will be nice to have made just a few more putts and I’m right in the tournament with the score that I’ve shot," Watson said on Friday afternoon. "And I’m still keeping the ball in play pretty well off the tee. Not as well today as yesterday. I really kept the ball in play off the tee nicely yesterday. Today I missed a few more fairways. But I’m getting the ball in play. That’s what you have to do here."

–J.R. Roth posted the low round of the day with a 66, putting him one under for the tournament and tied with Tommy Armour III and John Cook for second overall. Roth is not well-known, but that doesn’t mean he lacks experience. "I played in five PGAs, and played in three PGA seniors," he said Friday. "World Series of Golf in ’94, yeah. And I played the Champions last couple of years, got into ten or 11 events, almost had a top 10 in Naples and finished 21st, I think, at the Wal Mart First Tee, and around 20th last year at San Antonio at Oak Hill. I’ve had plenty of experience where I think playing with these guys, you know, I know them, they know me. And I just am going to play. It’s a big deal but it’s not a big deal."

–Couples wants people to know that the Pacific Northwest deserves more major tournaments. "Again, majors aren’t in town, and people love golf in the Northwest, and they’re coming out and supporting the tournament, which is great for me, because maybe some day before I finish it will come back to the Northwest and we’ll have another Senior Open. I don’t think they can get a better one than this."

–Defending Senior Open champ Fred Funk recovered a bit on Day 2, shooting par after a +6 on Thursday. "Well, I wanted to be around for the weekend," Funk said. "My teacher and I worked on some stuff last night and it really hit [on] the last five or six holes. It was just working on swing mechanics. We’ve been working on it for upwards of a year and a half now just trying to get more consistent." Funk went from 38 to 33 on the front nine.

How do you go from leading a tournament to being buried beneath it? There are so many ways to do it – a big part of the love-hate relationship we have with golf is that anyone, at any time, no matter how great the golfer, can randomly barf all over him (or her)self without warning.

On the Friday front nine of the U.S. Senior Open, that’s exactly what happened to Bruce Vaughan, whose -4 lead survived Bernhard Langer‘s morning challenge. When Vaughan teed off at 3:40 this afternoon, he still had the ticket. Through the first four holes today, he still had it some more.

And then … well, not so much.

The "adventure" started on the fifth hole, a 190-yard Par-3 with water to the right front of the green, and a bunker to the left. Vaughan hit it just above the water, and the ball rolled down the fringe, stopping just above where gravity would have taken it down. Vaughan putted off the fringe, got it to within three feet, and putted again for bogey.

He continued to kill himself off the tee on 6, a Par-4 that’s 480 yards long. He hit the driver off the left, behind two trees, and punched out about 20 yards forward. The third shot was a layup in front of a right bunker, maybe 10 yards from the green. He hit a nice hooded chip close to the hole, and two-putted off a downhill run.

On the Par-4, 420-yard seventh, he hit the left-side rough again, in deep grass with very little in the way of an opening back to the fairway (the picture below provides the view). Vaughan made a great shot here, going right though the branches of the tall double tree in the middle of the photo, and got on the green. A one-putt gave him the only par in the five-hole March of Doom.

On eight, another Par-4 (443 yards), he actually made a good tee shot to the edge of the first of three fairway bunkers on the left side, but three-putted to bring himself from -4 to even. In four holes. Ouch.

Then, the 205-yard Par-3 ninth, which he sent to the right and into the heart of a long, deep, kidney-shaped bunker. Vaughan pooched it out to a couple feet from the hole, but on a downhill sideways lie that made holing it out very difficult. He tried to get the curve, but missed just an inch downhill. And that was the fifth lost hole in five holes, taking Bruce Vaughan from the lead to the middle.

The bummer part of this story is that Vaughan is a genuinely nice guy – a former fireman, he bopped around on the mini-tours, worked his way though some knee problems, qualified for the Champions Tour at age 50 after a long layoff, won the Senior British Open in 2008, and still considers himself "just a country boy from Western Kansas and proud of it."

We’ll keep you posted on how Vaughan’s round ends – we can only hope for his sake that it’s better than it began.

Jerry Pate
knows golf. He’s got eight wins on the PGA Tour, including the 1976
U.S. Open, and he’s an accomplished course designer. Throughout the
season, he’ll be stopping by Devil Ball to offer an inside-the-ropes look at the week’s upcoming course. Today: the Old White Course at the Greenbrier Classic.

The Old White was built in 1914 by
Charles Blair MacDonald and Seth Raynor as the original golf course
to the historic Greenbrier resort.  C.B. created a wonderful golf
course that was full of his signature elements — "replicas" of his favorite holes from overseas such as the Biarritz, the Redan,
the Alps, and Eden.  Much of the course had lost its original character,
but a wonderful revitalization by architect Lester George has recently
restored Old White to her former glory.

George’s renovation was beautifully
done, in the engineered-style reminiscent of the hands of C.B.’s
field engineer Seth Raynor.  Many of the bunkers have relatively
straight lines and squared corners.   The top lines of the
bunkers and horizon lines of greens are also crisp.  These lines
are in stark contrast to the movement of the mountainous terrain all
about the golf course.  The contrast makes the golf course stand
out in the landscape, and offers the golfer a clear understanding of
the strategic elements before him.

Many of the bunkers rest perpendicular
to the line of play and dissect the centerlines of the fairways from
alternating sides at offset distances from the tee.  As a result,
players must hit accurate shots, choosing the correct line with the
distance they want to hit their shot.  The par-four seventh has
three fairway bunkers that reach toward the center of the fairway — the
first on the right, the next on the left, and the third on the right
again.  This hazard placement demands a choice of not just the
left or right side of the fairway in order to best attack the pin, but
also adds the element of distance control in the tee shot.  Overpowering
this golf course will not be allowed by this strategic design of CB
MacDonald.

I look forward to watching the players
on this venerable layout.  It will prove, once again, that great
strategic design is timeless and creates an interesting competition
that will be entertaining to watch.

Jerry Pate
has been designing golf courses for more than 30 years. His portfolio
of work includes Old Waverly Golf Club in Mississippi, site of the 1999
United States Women’s Open; Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck
(formerly known as Shadow Isle) in New Jersey; Kiva Dunes on the
Alabama Gulf Coast; and Rancho La Quinta Country Club in California.
See more of his work at www.jerrypategolfdesign.com.     

You gotta love a guy like Carl Pettersson. The winner of this past weekend’s RBC Canadian Open came out and said what we’ve all secretly suspected all along: getting in shape is bad for you.

Pettersson has long been one of the PGA Tour’s almost-there stars, a guy who has the talent to win but not necessarily break away from the pack. He’s also part of a long lineage of portly golf champions, from Craig Stadler to Mark Calcavecchia to John Daly. He’s listed at 5-11, 195 pounds, which seems like someone might be shaving a few strokes off that figure. And to hear him tell it, getting fit was the worst thing that could happen to him. 

In 2008, his game came together, as he won once, made 25 of 29 cuts, and earned a tidy $2.5 million in prize money. And then he did the unthinkable: he decided to lose a little weight and come back even stronger in 2009. 

"I
was thinking: What can I do to get better?" he said over the weekend. "Obviously I was a little
overweight and I thought, well, I’ll get fit. I actually lost 30 pounds
and my game completely left me. I guess the timing of the swing and
everything was thrown out and I really struggled in ’09."

That’s like saying country-fried steak and gravy might be a tad unhealthy. In 2009, Pettersson made only 15 of 29 cuts with but a single top-10, and earned "only" $564,000. But, once off the fitness bandwagon and back on the Krispy Kreme truck, or whatever his poison of choice may be, Pettersson found his game again. He’s already got four top-10 finishes and he’s nearly quadrupled his 2009 earnings.  

He’s also of a much calmer mindset. He was looking at missing the cut on Friday afternoon at the RBC. So to ease his nerves, he headed to the St. George clubhouse. "And
I walked in the locker room and Jay Williamson had all the scenarios
written out, and he’s like, ‘Grab a beer.’ Before you know it I’d had
seven beers (and) made the cut." Two days later, he was the champ.

"I’d love to be fitter," Pettersson said, "but I’m not going to go down that road again."

Hey, whatever works. He’s already a millionaire. And if he can figure a way to teach a gut-momentum golf swing, he’ll be a billionaire.

[Editor's note: Welcome to our new TV column, and welcome our new contributor, Jonathan Wall, who will take you through the ins and outs of the weekend in golf TV. Enjoy. And if you've got a better title for this column, hey, fire away! -- JB]

Following up the main act is never easy. Imagine if, say, a local band had to follow The Beatles during their heyday. You know 99 percent of the crowd — save the local band’s groupies and family — came to see one of the greatest bands of all time, so why kid yourself? The odds of the local band playing to a full house, after the main attraction leaves the stage, are zero-to-none.

The RBC Canadian Open, like most tour stops following a major championship, had the honor of trying to keep the competition on a high when most players were mentally drained. That left the event in a precarious position.

Do you push and try and find a way to increase your visibility? Or do you take your lumps and assume your rightful place in golf’s second tier? It’s a tough decision to make.

CBS assumed the task of turning this week’s event into something special. Instead of forcing the issue, the television network was given a gift in the form of a larger-than-life Swede who turned back the clocks and moved the Canadian Open into the relevant category — if only for one week.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I usually have no problem with Peter Kostis’ on-course commentary, until he gave us this gem on Sunday afternoon.

He noted that short hitters had faired well in the past at the Canadian Open, a tournament where precision always beats length.

"The thing about all the leaders — Dean Wilson, [Carl] Peterson, [Jeff] Quinney, Tim Clark — is that they’re all short hitters by PGA Tour standards. That doesn’t mean they’re short, but they’re not in the mold of Tiger Woods or Davis Love or Paul Casey. They don’t bomb it out there."

I don’t mind if Kostis mentions Woods and Love in there, but Casey? Bubba Watson or Dustin Johnson would have made more sense on the list.

A quick look at the tour driving distance has Casey in 27th. So why the mention of the Englishman on the list of tour bombers? He happens to be Casey’s swing instructor. Can you say shameless self-promotion?

More below.

I’m Kind Of A Big Deal

Those of us living outside the Great White North probably overlook the Canadian Open on the tour schedule. CBS did a fantastic job of trying to recreate some of the moments that made the tournament so special over the years.

Old black and white video brought the old tournament to life, as CBS showed clips of Sir Bob Charles‘ 1968 win at St. George’s Golf and Country Club, site of the week’s event. It had been 42 years since the course had hosted the event.

Another fact box during Saturday’s round gave the event even more credibility as a staple on the PGA Tour. The event happens to be the fourth-oldest tour event behind the U.S. Open, British Open and BMW Championship.

As CBS’s Bill Macatee noted, "the event is special to Canadians everywhere. It’s their fifth major and what they consider to be their Open championship."

Humble Pie

Most of Saturday’s third round was plagued by copious amounts of rain, turning the St. George’s course into a tricky track for the final groups.

Dean Wilson was lining up his second shot on the par-5 ninth as the rain continued to fall. A moment later David Feherty was questioning the decision to lay up in the rain with Wilson 240 yards to the front of the green and 270 to the pin.

"I’m sort of surprised here that [Dean Wilson] isn’t taking a leap at this one with 240 to the front and 272 to the hole," Feherty noted. He kept harping on the decision for another couple of seconds.

Wilson hit an iron, knocked his third close and made the birdie putt. At least Feherty had the sense of humor to eat his humble pie and admit he was wrong afterwards.

Where’s My Closeup?

CBS opened Saturday’s coverage with the biggest event on the course, and that was Carl Pettersson‘s near-59 after making the cut on the number. There was only one problem, though: the Swede was already in the clubhouse for the day, rendering the big story to footnote status as the event hit the airwaves.

Pettersson was 10-under over his final nine holes; however, CBS only showed clips of his last four holes. I know these monumental records tend to sneak up one you, but that’s really all you were able to come up with? It would have been great to see where he kick-started his round. Instead, they showed the same four-hole replay countless times, including again on Sunday.

But CBS made up for the footage with probably the camera shot of the weekend, when it did a slo-mo replay of Pettersson’s third shot on the par-5 15th, a shot that appeared to go through the trees before landing close to the pin. The network went back and replayed the shot again, noting this time that the ball managed to go through the leaves without falling off its line. It ended up being the shot of the week for not only Pettersson, but CBS as well. 

Notable and Quotables

• Saturday’s coverage went off the air as Dean Wilson was lining up a potential birdie putt on the 18th (a putt he would eventually make to take a five-shot lead). Couldn’t they wait another 30 seconds to see if he’d make or miss the putt?
• "Caddyshack" was released on the same day that a guy named Carl won a golf tournament … and David Feherty never even mentioned the connection. Carl Spackler would like a word with you, Mr. Feherty.
• "I love BMW’s." That was what Matt Kuchar was overheard saying as he eyed his tee shot on the par-3 16th; the German automaker was giving away a 5 series for a hole-in-one. Sadly, Kuchar never holed the shot. But at least we know what kind of car he enjoys driving.
• Great note by CBS’s Ian Baker-Finch on one of Pettersson’s swing adjustments he made: "Pettersson narrowed his stance after Friday’s second round, and it looks to have made a difference." It made a huge difference, as Pettersson set the 36-hole tour record (127).

Quotes Of The Week

"He’ll want to slap himself upside the head for hitting that one" — David Feherty on Tim Clark’s layup shot that found the rough on the ninth hole on Saturday.

"Do you think they can change their name to The Smurfs?" — David Feherty asking Bill Macatee if TCU (Texas Christian University) would consider changing the school’s mascot.

Follow Jay Busbee on Twitter at @jaybusbee.

Alexis Thompson is a 15-year-old pro on the LPGA Tour. Read that sentence again. Does it make your blood boil? Do you start to have visions of an overhyped, over-parented, over-coached youngster making a mockery of the LPGA? OK, hold on. Let me add a little more to the mix:

Alexis Thompson is a 15-year-old pro on the LPGA Tour, and she just tied for second at the Evian Masters.

Changes the game a little bit, doesn’t it? Thompson finished just a single stroke behind Jiyai Shin. And just a few weeks before, she tied for 10th at the U.S. Women’s Open. Impressive, huh?

Thing is, she won’t be at the Ricoh Women’s British Open thanks to a bizarre tumble of rules. She had won exemption into the Open’s final qualifying because she was a Curtis Cup member, but lost that exemption when she turned pro. That’s fairly standard procedure in golf; part of the debate about turning pro is to give up childish things, like exemptions you earned as an amateur.

[Photos: See more of teen golfing sensation Alexis Thompson]

What’s got to be frustrating for Thompson is that she doesn’t even have the opportunity to play her way into the tournament. Why? Because the Ladies Golf Union, the organizing body which oversees the Open, for some insane reason scheduled pre-qualifying the day after the U.S. Women’s Open.  

So here she is, with no exemption into final qualifying and no chance to have played in pre-qualifying. The Ladies Golf Union has flat-out denied Thompson’s petition to play in the qualifying tournament. 

"Exemptions into final qualifying for professionals are not the norm," Shona Malcolm, the LGU’s CEO, told Golfweek’s Sean Martin in an email. "The main circumstances would be medical exemptions or, occasionally and very exceptionally, players of reputation who had previously been long-term participants in, supporters of or winners of the Ricoh Women’s British Open."

Now, it’s obvious why golf officials are being a bit measured in their response to Thompson’s hot start. The last thing anyone wants is a repeat of the Michelle Wie situation, where a kid was hyped to the heavens and didn’t immediately perform. Thompson has done well early on, but there’s no indication it’ll sustain. (None that it won’t, either. Ya never know, do ya?)

So the Thompson camp is going to have to take this one on the chin and move forward. If she keeps playing at this level, this British Open snub is going to be nothing but a faint memory before too much longer. 

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For a certain generation of golf fans, David Duval is never far from our hearts. For a brief time, it looked like he was poised to become one of the greatest of all time, a player who could go toe-to-toe with Tiger Woods and smile while he did so.

Alas, it wasn’t to be; injuries hampered the former World No. 1′s effectiveness after his 2001 British Open win, and he all but fell off the face of the earth. Every once in awhile he’d resurface, most notably last year when he came within a few strokes of winning the 2009 U.S. Open, but he’d just as quickly sink back into near-obscurity.

Over the weekend, he shot three sub-70 rounds at the RBC Canadian, topped by a Sunday 65. He finished at 8-under, six strokes behind winner Carl Pettersson. If he follows form, he’ll vanish until, oh, February 2011. But hey, a little Duval is better than no Duval at all.