Australian Jason Day has rocketed up the leaderboard with a nine under 63 on day 3 of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, going desperately close to tying the course record.
Day started the round at four under for the tournament, but put himself into contention with a dazzling 18 holes, which included eight birdies and an eagle on a wet, miserable day.
He had an eagle putt on the par five 18th to tie the course record of 62, but it stopped on the edge of the cup, needing one more roll to go into the hole.
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Talking post-round, Day said it was good to play well after a “disappointing” second round.
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“When we have weather like this obviously there’s going to be a lot of wind. And a lot of rain. The greens are softer than I really like,” Day said.
“So you just got to have a really, really good attitude this week and I feel like I’ve done that really well over the years.
“But, you know, today I felt like I didn’t have a great objective today because I didn’t play that great yesterday.
“In saying that, I mean, it was, you know, I just got off to a really good start and then momentum, you know, pushing forward.
Remarkably, even if Day had tied the record, it was to be broken just an hour later, with American Wyndham Clark carding a spectacular 60 to set a new mark at the iconic course.
Clark, the 2023 US Open champion, hit 28 on the front nine at Pebble Beach and 32 on the back nine, missing an eagle putt on the last for a sub-60 score.
At the end of his round, Clark led the tournament by two shots at -17, with Day back in a tie for 5th at -13.
“I really didn’t think about it until I got to 18 tee box and when I did, I thought oh, my gosh, it would have been really nice to have one of those last two because then I only have to birdie 18,” Clark said.
“Once I hit the fairway on 18 I knew I was going to have a chance to hopefully try to shoot that special number. I gave it my best shot. Unfortunately, I left some putts short. I’m super happy with my round. Any time you shoot 12 under anywhere you’ve got to be happy.”
The previous course record of 62 was set by Tom Kite in 1983 and matched by fellow Americans David Duval in 1997 and Patrick Cantlay in 2021 plus Austrian Matthias Schwab in 2022.
Clark got off to a flying start with an eagle on the par-5 second, finding the green with his 200-yard approach then sinking a 39-foot putt.
He birdied the par-4 fourth and then produced his second eagle on the par-5 sixth, superbly draining a 42-foot putt.
Clark, taking advantage of slow greens, then made three birdies in a row to reach the turn in 28 strokes.
The birdie streak continued on the 10th and 11th before a setback on the par-3 12th, where he made bogey after finding the greenside bunker and rough before avoiding a double-bogey with a 26-foot putt from the fringe.
The push for 59 came back into sight with birdies on the 13th and 14th before his exceptional putting fell short.
He took an aggressive approach on the final hole, where he blasted his second onto the green and although his eagle effort failed he had the compensation of the record low score on the historic course.
“To have the course record at a place like this, you don’t even dream about stuff like this, really.” said Clark.
“I didn’t even visualize the day this good. It was honestly surreal.”
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