Round 3 notes: U.S. Bank Championship

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Jul. 18, 2009
By Mark Stevens, PGA TOUR Staff

• Since more than 78 players (80) made the 36-hole cut, a second cut was made to reduce the field to 70 players and ties following the third-round, leaving 72 players at 1-over to return on Sunday for the fourth round.

• Frank Lickliter II has won two of three times when holding the 54-hole lead. Below are the tournaments where he has held the 54-hole lead:

Event Finish Final-Round Score
2000 Phoenix Open T10 74 (+3)
2001 Kemper Insurance Open 1 68 (-3)
2003 Chrysler Classic of Tucson 1 69 (-3)

• Lickliter has not been in the top 3 after 54-holes at a tournament since 2006 when he was T3 at the U.S. Bank Championship, where he finished T4. He was T2 at the 2006 Valero Texas Open after 54-holes, but finished T5.

• Lickliter is looking for his first top-10 finish since the 2006 FUNAI Classic at the WALT DISNEY WORLD Resort (T2).

• If he wins tomorrow, Lickliter will be nine days short of his 40th birthday. This season on TOUR, there have been 17 winners in their 30s, seven in their 40s and only four in their 20s. Last year, there were 15 winners in their 20s, 24 in their 30s and nine in their 40s.

• More than likely, it will take four rounds in the 60s to win the 2009 U.S. Bank Championship. Scott Hoch (1995 and 1997) is the only player to card a round in the 70s and go on to win the event in the 15-year history at Brown Deere Park. Below are the round-by-rounds scores of the top-5 players:

1 Lickliter 66-70-63--199
2 Greg Chalmers 64-67-69--200
T3 Jeff Maggert 68-67-66--201
T3 Chris Riley 67-66-68--201
T5 Brendon de Jonge 70-66-66--202
T5 John Mallinger 70-66-66--202
T5 Jeff Quinney 67-68-67--202
T5 Jeff Klauk 64-69-69--202

• Chalmers has recorded 17 of his last 21 rounds on TOUR at par or better.

• Chalmers is looking for his second top 5 of the season (T4 -- Puerto Rico Open).

• de Jonge moved into T5 with a second consecutive 66. If the Zimbabwe native were to win, the U.S. Bank Championship would feature winners from all six of the populated continents, with Antarctica being the exception.

• The tournament record for largest comeback after 54-holes is five strokes by Jim Gallagher Jr. in 1990. Since that time the 54-hole leader has gone on to win nine of 18 times.

• The third-round leader has gone on to win 18 of 28 times (64 percent) on the PGA TOUR this season. The last to accomplish the feat was Tiger Woods at the AT&T National.

Past champions
U.S. Bank Championship
Player Years won 54-hole status
Jeff Sluman 1998, 2002 T9
Joe Ogilvie 2007 T16
Loren Roberts 1996, 2000 T30
Scott Hoch 1995, 1997 T39
Corey Pavin 1986, 2006 T39
Carlos Franco 1999, 2004 T50
Mark Brooks 1991 T63

Dicky Pride fired a 7-under 63 in the third-round to match his career-low round. He also had a 63 in the final round of the 2006 U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee to finish T9.

• Pride won the 1994 Federal Express St. Jude Championship in just his 19th start on the PGA TOUR and has not finished in the top-2 since (337 events and 15 years ago).

• Five of the six Champions Tour players in this week's U.S. Bank Championship field made the cut -- Ronnie Black (T58), Hoch (T39), Loren Roberts (T30), Jeff Sluman (T9) and Bob Tway (T30). Fred Funk was the lone Champions Tour player not to make the cut.

Matt Jones recorded a hole-in-one from 171 yards on No. 3 with a 9-iron. Jonathan Kaye followed with a hole-in-one on No. 7 from 215 yards with a 5-iron. Kaye's was the 17th hole-in-one since the tournament moved to Brown Deer Park Golf Course in 1994. With Omar Uresti's hole-in-one on Friday, it marks the first time since 1994 that there have been three or more ace's at this event. In 1996, there were four hole-in-one's recorded, including Woods' in the final-round on No. 14.

Scoring Averages at Brown Deer Park Golf Course
Par 70
Round Front 9 Back 9 Total Cumulative
Round 1 34.550 36.244 70.794 ---
Round 2 34.543 35.155 69.698 70.250
Round 3 33.663 35.313 68.975 69.950

• The U.S. Bank Championship final-round scoring average (67.974) last year was the lowest final-round on TOUR since the 1991 Chattanooga Classic (67.671) won by Dillard Pruitt.

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