With Gary Woodland and Justin Rose playing so well, the only guy getting major attention behind them is Brooks Koepka.
Koepka’s at seven-under through 54 holes but he’s got company there, just not high profile company — as in Chez Reavie. Reavie has just one PGA Tour win — the 2008 Canadian Open — yet there he is with an outside shot at a U.S. Open title.
Reavie’s there because he basically made every putt he looked at on Saturday and has been solid at Pebble Beach for three days.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Reavie said of his solid play. ” It’s playing tough out there, and the whole deal is not making bogeys, trying to figure how to plat your way around each hole and give yourself the best chance to make par. You can make a few birdies if you make some putts, but you’re trying to make a lot of pars. Fairways and greens. Kind of the same today. I kind of messed it up on the last hole. I was trying to lay it up on the fairway and missed the fairway, I got lucky and had a decent lie, but it was a scary layup shot. Even from the fairways the greens are firm. Quite a few good shots that land into bigger skips. So fairways and greens and like I said, no bogeys.”
The other player at seven under is a major champion. Louis Oosthuizen was a runaway winner at the 2019 Open Championship. He knows he’ll have to have an incredible round to have a shot on Sunday.
“Just the fact that I’ve been there and know what the pressure is going to be like. But I think the guys, the last group, is going to be a little bit more pressure because obviously in the lead. For us trailing, it’s a little bit better feeling sort of giving it a better go. You don’t have that pressure of the lead. And just go with everything tomorrow. If you think you can take something on, take it on. And if you want to win the championship, you need to do that tomorrow,” Oosthuizen said after a round of 70.
“I think holes one through seven, I think you should be, in the position I am, probably two or three-under around when I get to the 8th. But, yeah, you know, I think once you get through eight, nine and 10, and I definitely think there’s some birdie holes after that, as well. But eight, nine and 10 is always a key stretch where you can easily throw your round away.
