The Open 2015: Johnson leads after wind-hit day

Spieth became the first player since Woods to win the Masters and U.S. Open in the same year. As he says, “I know I’m able to pull it off”. “People from over here, from the United Kingdom and Australians, we grew up watching Greg Norman win the Open championship”, Leishman said.

Piercy began the season on a major medical extension after surgery on his right arm previous year.

A victory this year in the Honda Classic signaled the 43-year-old was on the road back.

The quest for history “hasn’t crept into my head”, Spieth said after completing the third round.

“Fortunately it happened in the end part of the second round, so we’ve still got a lot of golf to play”.

That might not seem impossible to make up, though having 17 players ahead of him – Spieth included – makes it a tall order. Well known in amateur circles, Dunne was a two-time All-American at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. He plans to turn professional later this summer and try to claim a spot on the European Tour.

Jones was also the last of only three players to win the Open as an amateur when he triumphed at Royal Liverpool in 1930.

In his own words, Jason Day is eyeing sporting immortality at the British Open on Monday.

ST ANDREWS, Scotland, July 19 (Reuters) – Calm returned to St Andrews after the weather-related mayhem of the first two rounds with a birdie buffet fuelling a burst of low-scoring in the belated British Open third round on Sunday.

Such an opportunity might not come around again for Spieth. And then Jordan was running to his ball.

That must’ve fired him up.

A bogey on the 10th briefly slowed Duval’s charge, but the 43-year-old former world number one bounced back with a birdie on the 11th – the exposed par three which caused so many problems on Saturday – to get back to four under par.

Leishman’s excellent effort increased the pressure on the leaders, but he soon found himself tied for seventh as some of the big hitters made their moves.

The big-hitting 31-year-old was only two off the lead when he finally carded his first birdie of the day on the 15th, but bogeyed the last three holes to fall five behind. Half of them were major champions, and there was yet another amateur among them – 21-year-old Jordan Niebrugge of Oklahoma State.

Johnson, coming off a crushing loss at the U.S. Open, was at 10-under 134. Both stayed bogey-free. For Harrington, it was a return to old ways in his bid to add to the titles he won at Carnoustie in 2007 and Birkdale in 2008; for Dunne, it was brand new territory.

Johnson is playing in the final group Sunday with England’s Danny Willett. He’s gotten more air time in Golf Channel studios as an analyst in recent years than he has on a golf course as a player. He took 10 putts on the inward nine. And the 18th was there for the taking until his wedge shot rolled back into the Valley of Sin, leading to another par.

But after spending two days playing alongside Johnson, he also realized a third straight major will require some help.

Leishman’s fireworks lit up a cold and gloomy Sunday at the Old Course and came just three months after he sat out the Masters to be with wife Audrey as she fought for her life in a Virginia Beach hospital.