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British Open 2018: 17 numbers that tell the story of Saturday's third round at Carnoustie

July 21, 2018
147th Open Championship - Round Three

Francois Nel

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — "Moving Day" was filled with red numbers as players found Carnoustie to their liking. Just 23 players failed to break par on Saturday, with the leader board bunching up as the day wound down. What numbers stood out after Saturday's third round? Here are 17 to ponder that help tell the story of the third day at Carnoustie Golf Links:

64
Low round of Saturday (and the championship) carded by Justin Rose. The score was also the lowest for Rose in his career at the Open Championship (57 rounds played) and tied Steve Stricker and Richard Green for the lowest round at an Open at Carnoustie (both shot in 2007).

23 Rounds over par in the third round.

41
Rounds under par shot by the 79 remaining players in the field during the third round, three more than the 38 sub-par rounds that the entire 156-player field shot in the second round.

2
Number of players (Tiger Woods and Tom Morris Jr.) who have won four majors before turning 25, a group Jordan Spieth can join with a victory on Sunday.

8
Strokes by which Bernhard Langer, age 60, beat playing partner Rafa Cabrera Bello (age 34 and ranked 25th in the world) during Saturday’s play. Langer shot 68, his lowest round in the Open since 2001 at Royal Lytham and St. Annes.

6
PGA Tour wins from Tiger Woods when he's trailed by four or more strokes entering the final round; none of them were majors, however.

1
Birdies on the 503-yard par-4 12th hole, the first 500 yard par 4 in Open Championship history. Kevin Chappell was the lone player to make a 3, while there were 33 bogeys or higher. The field averaged 4.506 strokes, making it the hardest hole of the day.

4.101
Stroke average on the 513-yard par-5 14th hole on Saturday. It was a lower stroke average than three of the par 4s at Carnoustie (ninth, 12th and 17th) and dead equal to the average on the par-4 18th.

9
Bogey-free rounds on Saturday: Justin Rose (64), Yusaku Miyazato (65), Francesco Molinari (65), Jordan Spieth (65), Byeong Hun An (66), Jason Dufner (68), Webb Simpson (67), Austin Cook (67), Haotong Li (67), Kevin Kisner (68). That's compared to just one bogey-free round over the first two days, shot by Tommy Fleetwood on Friday.

11
Number of times a third-round leader or co-leader has gone on to win the Open since 2000.

27 Average World Ranking of the 12 players that are T-5 (five under) or better heading into Sunday. Jordan Spieth/6; Xander Schauffele/24; Kevin Kisner/33; Kevin Chappell/61; Francesco Molinari/15; Tiger Woods/71; Webb Simpson/21, Alex Noren/11, Matt Kuchar/27; Rory McIlroy/8; Tommy Fleetwood/10; Zach Johnson/52)

379
Driving distance average, yards, for Bryson DeChambeau, who leads the field in that category but stands T-74 through 54 holes.

288
Birdies converted by the field on Saturday, or an average of 3.6 per player.

14
Eagles made on Saturday.

2
Eagles made on holes other than the par-5 6th (1) and the par-5 14th (11). Jordan Spieth eagled the first hole after driving the green and Zander Lombard holed out from the fairway at 18.

1
Eagles made 18 during the last three Opens at Carnoustie. Lombard recorded the first deuce at the home hole at Carnoustie since at least 1975. Records weren't available farther back than the 1999 Open Championship. Chances are there was an eagle there in 1968 when it played as a par-5.

20 Amount paid, in pounds sterling, by Jordan Spieth for the haircut he got in town prior to his third round.