Smylie Kaufman and Charlie Hulme recap day three at the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon, where Smylie is on-site broadcasting the major for NBC Sports. Saturday's conditions for the final groups, according to SK, were some of the most difficult he has seen - *ever* - for a major championship. Smylie was assigned to Justin Rose and Billy Horschel's group today, and details a round that saw the latter take the outright lead heading into Sunday. Smylie and Charlie play a guessing game using Data Golf's predictive odds ranking the five players with the best chance to hoist the Claret Jug tomorrow.
The Smylie Show
Open Championship Day 3 Journal
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Start a 30-day free trial at walmartplus.com. Paramount Plus is central plan only. Separate registration required. See Walmart Plus turns and conditions. [MUSIC] [APPLAUSE] Wow. I'm smiley coffin and this is the smiley show. [MUSIC] Welcome back to the round three open championship daily journal. A little recap here on the smiley show. With smiley coffin, who is fresh out of the steam room after a freezer of a day out there on the course. I mean, what a wild, you know, we talked last couple of days about the differences in the waves. And it was no better illustrated than today. You know, when you're watching some of the guys earlier in the morning, Seawoo Kim, Acing the 17th in pretty perfect weather with a long iron his hand. And then you get the final group and Shane Lowry is hitting driver. I mean, just true insanity. He hit driver on 17. He hit driver on 17. I was wondering if, like, you could have hit driver. Yeah. The shot of the day was Scotty's three wood to a foot for birdie. I still, I mean, he does amazing things all the time. But that was maybe it. So here's where I want to start is the group you had, which I'm calling the, how do you do fellow kids group as they were both rocking the backwards hats all day long? Billy Horstle and Justin Rose. And that's not a critique. I love old dads, old guys rocking backwards hat. I'm an old guy that rocks backwards hat. So this was very much enjoyable to see them doing this all day long. But I mean, you had probably the performance of the day, considering the weather smiley and Billy Horstle. And so many places we could go, his ability to scramble on the back nine that was playing incredibly tough and those kind of, you know, windy wet conditions. Just, it seems like he did a little bit of everything good today. What was the recipe for Billy Horstle today that got him to where he is, which is leading the open championship, heading into Sunday. Oh man. Is he leading? He's leading. Wow. He's leading 400. Yeah, because I'm just seeing this now. You came off the course. Daniel Brown doubled 18 after. Was he smoking a heater on 18 is what I heard? This was, this was so good. This was such a perfect way to close this day. The open championship of all the wildness because he's heading up 18. After hitting his tee shot on the edge of a pop bunker where he's going to have some insane, either left handed shot or in the bunker sawed off, right handed shot. And what's he do to prep for that? He rips a heater and then he puts the heater out and goes over to the fence and takes a selfie with a bunch of guys watching who are following him around that day. So Daniel Brown, no matter what happens to Dan Brown tomorrow, he is certifiably a man of the people. That much is, is just locked in. But yeah, he, he, he punched it out. Then he hits his third in a, in a green side bunker on the left. And the only place he can go out there is kind of backwards. Ends up making a double there. And then Shane Lowry, I don't know if you saw his tee shot. He goes way right. And then he hit his approach shot into the bleachers. I saw that. I was driving right past him when that happened. Got a nice drop, but just didn't hit a very good wedge in there and makes a five. So that was the story. That could be a Billy Horshel, your guy, the leader after, after three rounds of trim. Unreal, man. Let's see. Let's start with Billy, the leader. He played phenomenal today. You know, the golf course on the front was, was gettable today. Six of the first seven holes were playing under par. The first two days, there was only two holes playing under par. So there were opportunities to hit iron off the tee wedge in your hand. There were hiding some pins, but still you could, you could make some birdies with two par fives and wedges. If you're able to sneak one on one, two or three. And Billy was flawless, hit every fairway, every green on the front. Really conservative game plan really understood the golf course and how it was playing that day. Didn't ever play overly aggressive, but I wouldn't call his game plan conservative either. He just really had a great feel for what the wind conditions were that day and what was being given to him. So took advantage on the front nine, you know, shooting four under on the front. Just a great start. And then 10 hits a loose iron shot. And that's where, this is where the Justin Rose, Billy Horshel, up and down marathon around the green started was on 10. Like it was insane. Every single hole, they got it up and down. The only one that didn't get up and down for Billy on the back was on 11, but that was from like 80 yards. So I don't even know if you count that. And Justin Rose didn't get up and down from 17 from a, he had a ridiculously good bunker shot, but just honestly got a bad kick missed the putt. And then honestly, Billy at 18 was a little surprising that he putted that. I thought the up and down was going to be really difficult because of where the ball, I thought it was even behind the bunker based on where I was in the fairway. It kind of scooted past. And I actually, I didn't think he took full advantage of a good break of that ball being past the bunker and being able to kind of manage that and not getting that up. And now was a surprise. But as far as just conditions go today, hardest golf course, especially the back nine I've probably ever seen. It was absurd. I mean, guys, even in comparison to the last two days, you'd say that. Yeah. Yeah. I would give me, give me that front nine in those conditions yesterday over. Yeah, give me, give me the front nine conditions yesterday over what these guys face on the last six holes on the back. What was here? Here's what is not the last six. I guess 10 and 11, too. Yeah. Well, I mean, here's what's bothering my mind about that, right? Is your boy, fellow RLX guy, Billy Ho out there playing in short sleeves yet you're hitting the steam room before the pod because you're so frigid. Like, was it, was it cold? I don't, how was he wearing? He was wearing relative to everybody else. Uh, grit. He's a two degree, it's all fortitude. Some guys don't like swinging and rang here. He was putting it on on and taking it on, um, or putting it on when he hit, uh, excuse me, when he was walking to his golf ball and taking off when he had shots. Um, it wasn't bad enough, I guess, to where that was given him issues. Uh, God, he just, I mean, the fist pump from Billy on a hole and then Justin Rose, which is just grinding his ass off, just making par after bar on the back nine. I think he had, uh, at one point, 11 straight par is then bogeyed the 17th hole, but then it gritty up and down at 18. The whole day was, uh, I think said best by Billy after the round. Just said this today, which is about who wanted it the most, and especially the back nine. And you either were going to grind your, you know what off, uh, to the finish or you weren't at Billy Horshel was, uh, you know, he, the way he played the front nine, you know, hit it the way he hit it. And then just the back nine was going to be all about getting it up and down. So he just answered every, every test today. On the topic of weather, I'm looking at the leaderboard now, right? And you're tempted to see guys like Tristan Lawrence or Sam Burns, you know, even a Russell Henley who posted two six hundreds and a 500 respectively and say, man, I wonder what the weather is going to be like tomorrow morning and should I be going down to the two over category and picking some names I like there that can make a move, but I'm looking at the weather report right now. And while I guess in the morning, it looks a little bit similar to what we saw this morning where the wind's a little bit down. There's, there's definitely more wind in the forecast tomorrow than there was early morning today. Now, there's no real rain in the forecast, but do you have any sort of read from people talking internally or kind of projecting what the weather is going to be like tomorrow as to whether we're going to see some early scores in the morning wave, or are we expecting it to be a test for the entire entire field tomorrow. I honestly have not yet seen the forecast. I just knew that it that we're not expected to get rain. So I need to probably do a little homework on that here. Maybe I can do some live, live checking here to see what I see on my head. But, you know, this, this, this day today, it's, it's been such a unique championship because I feel like the draw has totally influenced where these guys are at the top. If you were a person that was kind of in that range around two, three over, that was a sweet spot today, because you were close enough to the lead, you know, with these guys coming back, going out like Sam Burns, Tristan Warren, it's like, they did not have to play in windy conditions. It was, it was, yes, it started raining for him maybe on the back nine, but the rain wasn't an issue. It's just the wind and the wind really didn't get starting to blow today until it was the 10th and 11th hole. So, for the second to last group, that would have been, I would say they teed off at three, 335. So they would have been coming through around like six, six, 15. So Sam Burns, he teed off at 110. So you really only had to play maybe a hole or two, and what I called the most challenging conditions of the day. So Tristan warrants in that same, same vein and maybe those two guys as well were in the late early draw and then the perfect sweet spot in this part of the draw to so maybe Russell Henry there as well. But I know Justin Rose has been every bad draw to this point. So the fact that he's three under and still hanging in there is so impressive. He's had the worst draw of anybody of the week. And Xander Schofle and Scottie Schaffler to me, Charlie, those are the two guys that seemingly haven't done anything yet in this tournament to where you feel like, oh, they're going to win, but they haven't gone anywhere. Xander Schofle is one shot back and Scottie Sheff was two shots back. And if you think that they're not going to be involved tomorrow. I mean, something I feel like went terribly wrong. Let me read to you on that note, a list of data golf's predicting the percentage chance that this player has to win. And I'm going to start with the fifth best chance to win and go over the first. Please. Okay, start with number five. Number five. I'm going to go with. Actually, it's probably easier for me to start at the top, because I. Yeah, sure, it's the best chance to win. Xander Schofle. That is correct. Xander Schofle at three under par has a 21.9% chance to win according to data golf. Who do you think is second. I'm going to say it's got to be really close between Billy Horsham and Scottie Sheffler. I'm going to go with Billy and then Scottie. That is incorrect. It is Scottie. Wow, that's not even doing two shots off the lead. He's a 16.1% chance to win. Billy is third with the 13.8% chance to win. And do you want to take a flyer guess on four or five? Give me four or five. It's going to be. Give me Sam Burns and Justin Rose. That's interesting, because it is. It is not Sam Burns and Justin Rose, Justin. Justin Rose actually has the seventh best chance to win. Okay, data golf for its Russell Henley 11.6. My bad. I just skipped over him. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, five and five is Sam Burns at 10.2. Not that. Not that they're 10.3. Rather, not that necessarily means anything, but I mean, that is kind of what the data is saying. It has the best possible chance. So to kind of extend that to a discussion. I mean, Scottie and Xander just lurking right there. And it's kind of amazing how it happened. Really just the last two holes of the day where you have Billy Horshel, who comes into the 18th at 500 par, makes bogey there and drops to drops a 400 par, of course. And then you have Dan Brown coming in at 500 par and doubling to drop to 300 par. So these guys who look like they could have been a long ways off. You know, now it's two shots for Scottie Sheffler. I mean, he does that in his sleep. And we saw him do it. The players earlier this year. There's been a lot, a lot of situations where you leave this guy hanging around and you're going to pay for it in a big way. And same as Andrew. I mean, Scottie putted bad today, huh? Yeah. Let me, let me flip over here to that section. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, last three strokes game putting it. And another guy three dude. There's 79. He was 79th. And there was 80 dudes. So one guy putted worse than that's Darren Fichardt. But he is last. So yeah, the parts of the broadcast I saw were Scottie was putting. I think he had a tough little lip out on one hole. I mean, really and truly, I think the one thing that stood out to me was that shot. He had a 17, which was phenomenal. That three would, you know, scrapes it even part around a 71. Another guy had a tough day on the tough day on the greens Shane Lowry, negative 2.33 strokes game putting shoots at 77 a day. What do you make of Shane's day? Because 77, obviously, in a vacuum, not a great score. But then you look at it relative to the field. And this is a guy who, okay, had an off day today. But even talking to Jackson before the show about this, you know, you, the conditions changing the way they did is so kind of cruel to a guy like Shane Lowry because we've talked on the lead up where Scott's one of the best long iron players out there right now, right? Yeah. You're watching Seawoo Kim ace the 17th with a long iron in his hand earlier in the day. And then it's Shane comes around and plays it in conditions where he is hitting a driver on 17. And so it's like all these, it's such a razor thin edge for a guy like that where all the things he's good at in a heartbeat can become challenges. And all of a sudden you're hanging off for dear life and you're making a bunch of bogeys on the back and the way he did. So, I mean, Shane, you know, could go out there tomorrow, right? And post the great score and be in the hunt, but it's a tough, tough draw for Shane today. Yeah, definitely so. And the back nine that he had, he had five bogeys. Eighteen was ridiculously hard. It was, it was basically felt like a par five. Fifteen was basically a par five, fourteen. You know, that was, that was probably not the best bogey. I feel like that was one where you could have probably snuck a par in, but twelve. That whole was a good win conditions, but still twelve has been ridiculous all week. And eleven, if you make bogey there, it feels like you're winning, honestly, because of how hard this hole is. The biggest mistake today for me from Shane Wowery was on eight. It seemed like him and annual Brown from listening. I didn't get to see the shots, but it sounded like they both hit it left in the coffin bunker. Is that correct? On, on, on which hole now? Eight on eight. I, I, yes, they both hit the ball left in the coffin bunker and Shane had to mark his ball. Daniel Brown went outside. Oh, he's actually hit a pretty great shot. All things considered and got to stop. Shane went off the, he tried to hold it and went off the back of the green and took kind of that wire grasp behind the green and, and then make stubble from there. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's, that's the biggest mistake today because I was on eight as far as the conditions, why they were, you know, hardly anything. I think if any, if you, if you want to say, I think Shane were remembering from the broadcast, I believe he felt like he had a good shot. I think I remember somebody saying, I think he was surprised that there was a little bit more right to left in it. And maybe that's when the wind like started to get going a little bit more out of the Northwest and he kind of progressively went. And unfortunately for him at the eighth, he just didn't maybe catch it at the perfect time where the group before, I felt like, you know, it wasn't playing that hard. I say that relatively right, like it's still really hard, but it wasn't playing crazy hard like it was yesterday. The one and apologies. I was looking over to check his stats here. The one that just blew my mind was, you know, the bogey makes on 15, where it is a par 4.5 or two yards to get today, but both he and Daniel Brown on a par four hit a driver off the deck into the screen. And he ended up 30 yards short after hitting driver there. I mean, truly insane conditions today for these guys. And I mean, it's, I think it's what's cool about this is even all that having happened. I mean, let me just read you some of the names. I just read you the top 10 or so right here. I mean, you've got in the mix tomorrow. Billy Horshel, Xander Shoffley, Russell Henley, Sam Burns, Tristan Lawrence, Justin Rose, Daniel Brown, Scotty Sheffler, Shane Lowry, Adam Scott, Justin Thomas. I mean, we are shaping up for a heck of a Sunday at Trune, and it's really just going to be who, who's, what Billy Horshel said, who's going to be up for it tomorrow? Yeah, who, who do you like tomorrow? What do you think is his voice in the clear jug at the end of this? You know, it's, it's so hard to say because it's all going to be about who can put the ball in the fairway on the front nine. If you put the ball in the fairway on the front nine, you can go out and shoot, you know, a three, four under par like we saw with Billy Horshel today. I feel that if you're even or over par on the front nine, you're not going to win this championship. You got to go out and then we shoot to under it at minimum. I don't see anybody having a heroic back nine. If the conditions are, you know, still out of the Northwest tomorrow, like we had today, the back nine, it's just, it's going to be so difficult to find a birdie. Even if it's half or a quarter of, of, you know, the wind gust that we were feeling, it, it just, it's just so hard to find one on the back nine. Yeah, well, it's going to be a lot of fun. All of us tomorrow tuning in to see what direction the wind's going. If all of a sudden rain crops off of its cold, if it's warm, all stuff that's going to be thrilling and really fun. Watch on Sunday at the Open Championship. So we're looking forward to taking it all in tomorrow with you on the broadcast. And then tomorrow we will not have a recap right after competition like we had the last couple of days. We're going to do this, I think, with you in Ireland. Is that correct? Yeah, maybe so. Maybe we'll see if the Wi-Fi works and everything. I mean, it's always a new place, new city, figuring out what's going on. We've got a golf trip coming up and going to try to get this recap done tomorrow morning in Ireland. So, well, hopefully all that works out. Yeah, that's it. He's just as much for you, the audience, as it is for Smiley and I, we're just going to, we're going to figure it out. So we hope you enjoyed this journal today. We're looking forward to recapping it all once it's done. We have a new winner of the Open Championship. We appreciate you watching and listening and we will talk to you very soon. Ever dream of a three-row SUV where everything for every passenger feels just right? Introducing the all-new Infinity QX80 with available features like biometric cooling, electronic air suspension, and segment first individual audio that isolates sound right to the driver's seat. Discover every just right feature in the all-new QX80 at infinityusa.com. 2025 QX80 is not yet available for purchase. Expected availability summer 2024. Individual audio cannot offer all interior sounds. You'll notice manual free details. Walmart Plus members save on meeting up with friends. Save on having them over for dinner with free delivery with no hidden fees or markups. That's groceries plus napkins plus that vegetable chopper to make things a bit easier. Plus, members save on gas to go meet them in their neck of the woods. 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