Hole of the day
No. 1 482 YARDS PAR 4

Very few golf courses in the world start off with their toughest hole, but Oakmont is different. Yet another unique feature of this magnificent layout is the daunting first hole, a downhill, 482-yard par 4 that features a smallish green that slopes away from the golfers. Nasty stuff.

Yesterday, the hole played to an average of 4.587, the toughest on the course. There were no birdies, 28 pars, 33 bogeys and two double bogeys. While the greens were watered yesterday morning, it was still tough to get at the pin in the back right.

The two top names on the leader board, Aaron Baddeley and Tiger Woods, got their par and got out. But the likes of contenders Jim Furyk, Niclas Fasth, Justin Rose, David Toms and Nick Dougherty all bogeyed their first hole of the day.

Firing from a narrow fairway into the well-bunkered green is one of the toughest tests at Oakmont. And to get it right out of the gate in the third round of the U.S. Open isn't close to fair. But that's what you get when you play the wicked No. 1 at Oakmont.

Mr. big shot
Aaron Baddeley, Hole No. 17

Talk about your money shots, how about the one by leader Aaron Baddeley on the par-4 17th. He starts with a bad drive on the 305-yard hole that lands on the lip of a fairway bunker, a sideways lie. Baddeley elected to hit it almost like a baseball swing and chips it up the narrow neck in front of the green, rolling the ball just off the green in the back. From there, he two-putted for his par, keeping him in the lead by a stroke. The reaction in the media center as he set up for his second shot was a lot of "oh-ohs," but he did it. Under Open pressure, no less.

Hey, I've done that
He says he didn't hit the shot out of anger, but the way Bubba Watson (our favorite name out there, by the way) hit his fourth shot at the par-4 ninth sure looked like a mad hacker on a Saturday at a public course. After a good drive, he chunked a 5-iron into the left rough 15 yards from the green. He then hacked the ball forward a few more yards into more rough then quickly stepped up and whacked that shot just off the far side of the green and into the first cut of rough. From there, he chipped for his fifth shot, then two-putted for a triple-bogey 7. He finished his round at 4-over 74, and three of those strokes were on one hole.

Statistic of the day
Before the third round yesterday, the USGA decided that certain greens were too slick, so they decided to put the hoses to them. In particular, they cited five holes -- 2, 3, 5, 6 and 13 -- as needing some aquatic nourishment. The final putting average for the field in the third round was 1.75 per hole. Here's how those nurtured greens did against the average:

No. 2 -- 1.81 (61.9 greens in regulation)
No. 3 -- 1.70 (39.7 GIR)
No. 5 -- 1.78 (55.6 GIR)
No. 6 -- 1.71 (52.4 GIR)
No. 13 -- 1.84 (77.8 GIR)
For the record Nos. 6 and 13 are par-3s.