Byrd’s no match for eagles

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This article was published 05/06/2011 (5546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DUBLIN, Ohio — Steve Stricker holed out from the fairway for one of his two eagles Saturday, wound up with a 3-under 69 on a steamy afternoon at Muirfield Village and finished with a three-shot lead in the Memorial.

He still had to convince himself it was a good day.

Right when it looked as though Stricker might leave everyone in his wake, he missed a four-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole that threw his round into reverse. He made bogey on the par-5 15th. He missed a four-foot par putt on the 16th, and had a seven-foot birdie on the next hole catch the lip. And when he arrived to his ball in the middle of the 18th fairway, it was right in the middle of a sand-filled divot.

Stricker managed to save par on the last hole, and perspective soon followed.

“All of a sudden, things seemed pretty hard, when at the start of the day, things were really going my way,” he said. “But I understand that, and I understand that’s the nature of this game. So you add them up at the end, and it was a 69. And it was a good score.”

The score that matters is 12-under 204, which was three shots clear of Jonathan Byrd.

Byrd, who won the season-opener at Kapalua after playing in the final group with Stricker, hit his approach into two feet on the final hole for a birdie at a 69. Perhaps most significant to Byrd was that he didn’t drop a lot of shots down the stretch as so many others did. Byrd’s only blunder came on the par-5 11th, where he made his only bogey in his last 43 holes.

“I’m doing everything pretty well,” Byrd said.

Matt Kuchar was the only player who seemed capable of keeping up with Stricker in the early going, but he dropped two shots in his last four holes and had to settle for a 68. That put him in a tie for third with Brandt Jobe (69), four shots behind.

Rory McIlroy is still in the hunt.

Despite a sloppy double bogey on the par-3 fourth, the 22-year-old from Northern Ireland rolled in a long eagle putt on the 15th and wound up with a 71. McIlroy was 10 shots behind with six holes to play, and now is within five shots of the lead.

“Even though I didn’t play my best stuff today, I’m still in a decent position going into tomorrow,” McIlroy said. “And that’s all you can ask for.”

He was at 7-under 209, along with former PGA champion Shaun Micheel (67) and Mark Wilson, who shot 66 and will be trying to win for the third time this year.

Luke Donald, in his debut as No. 1 in the world, might only have a shot at his 10th consecutive top-10 finish in worldwide golf. Donald tried to stay in the picture until making a few bogeys down the stretch, as so many others did. He shot a 73 and was eight shots behind in a tie for 17th.

Four-time major champion Phil Mickelson finished with two birdies for a 72 and was 10 shots behind.

Stricker holed out for eagle from 113 yards on the second hole, made another eagle with a 3-iron into six feet on the par-5 fifth. It looked as though he might run away from the field when he rolled in a 25-foot birdie putt on the par-3 eighth.

It all changed with the short putt he missed on the 14th.

“Just missing that putt, and then sitting down at 15 tee, not getting going after that miss,” he said. “The whole back nine seemed to kind of drag on a little bit. We waited a lot, it seemed like. I started missing some putts. Things seemed a little bit more difficult. My lies all of a sudden turned out to be a little more difficult.”

— The Associated Press