Sunday, June 18, 2000
Woods begins final round with
record 10-shot lead
By ROB GLOSTER
AP Sports Writer
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — With only
history standing in his way, Tiger Woods began Sunday's final
round of the 100th U.S. Open with a record lead in the most dominant
performance in a major since his 12-stroke win at the 1997 Masters.
Woods, closing in on his third major championship
at the age of 24, was at 8-under par 205 entering the fourth round,
10 strokes clear of the field. He was the only golfer under par,
with Ernie Els the nearest challenger at 2-over 215.
“There's so little excitement with
the gallery,” 1992 Open winner Tom Kite said. “There's
no noise. It's almost like it's over. It's not going to be a very
exciting day. This could be one of the most boring U.S. Open finales
of all time.
“It's kind of like Texas in the old
Southwest Conference. You knew who was going to win before the
game.”
The lead was down to nine strokes after
three holes Sunday. Woods had gone par-par-par to stay at 8 under,
missing a long birdie putt on No. 3 by inches, while Padraig Harrington
had moved to 1 over with two birdies on the first three holes.
Woods already had set U.S. Open records
with a six-shot lead after the second round and the 10-shot margin
after the third. The previous 54-hole record margin was set in
1921 by James Barnes, who led by seven and went on to win by nine.
The largest winning margin in Open history
is 11 strokes by Willie Smith in 1899. The biggest margin of the
20th century was Barnes' nine-shot win in 1921.
Woods' 10-stroke margin also tied for the
largest 54-hole lead in any of golf's majors. Henry Cotton led
by 10 strokes after three rounds of the 1934 British Open.
The only performance in a recent major rivaling
Woods' dominance at Pebble Beach was three years ago at the Masters,
when Woods entered the final round with a nine-shot lead and won
by a record 12 strokes.
While the weather has varied throughout
the tournament — brilliant sunshine giving way to fog, wind
rising and then disappearing — Woods has been remarkably
steady. Even the weather did little to challenge him Sunday on
a mild, still day.
Woods, who has won 11 of his last 20 PGA
Tour events, seems almost certain to become the eighth wire-to-wire
U.S. Open champion, and the first since the late Payne Stewart
in 1991 at Hazeltine.
No one has ever come back from more than
seven strokes to win a U.S. Open, and Woods is not a guy to waste
a big lead. He has a 17-2 career record when he has at least a
share of the lead after three rounds.
A victory Sunday would give Woods the third
leg of the career Grand Slam, with the British Open at St. Andrews
a month away. Jack Nicklaus, whose records Woods used as inspiration
as a child, won all four majors by the time he was 26.
Richard Zokol, who began the fourth round
23 strokes behind Woods, made a little history of his own Sunday
morning. He played the front nine in 5-under 30, tying Andy Dillard
(1992) and George Burns (1982) for the lowest nine-hole score
at Pebble Beach in a U.S. Open.
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