CASTLE ROCK — With Day 3 of the 2024 BMW Championship in the books, here’s a look at a few of the top wow moments and a few of the uglier ones from Castle Pines Golf Club.
The Wow Moments
• Billy Horschel played the opening hole about as perfectly as possible. He laced a drive 381 yards down the right of the fairway, then used a 3 wood to bomb his second shot to the green. The ball spun back to about four feet from the hole. He finished out for an eagle.
• On the 11th hole, Collin Morikawa put his first shot into the left bunker and then misfired again from the sand, sending the ball to the fringe past the green. But he saved par with a brilliant recovery — a perfectly paced right-to-left putt that dropped in from 62 feet out.
• Amid a Saturday surge that saw Xander Schauffele climb up the leaderboard to finish at 7-under overall, he nearly aced the par-3 11th. He landed his 192-yard tee shot just 13 inches from the hole, drawing a roar from the gallery before he tapped in for birdie.
The Ugly Moments
• Cam Davis birdied the first two holes of the day before the par-4 3rd hole brought him freefalling back down to earth. He put his tee shot in the water, then his drop shot out-of-bounds in the native grass. By the time he two-putted, he recorded a triple bogey.
• A rough day for Sahith Theegala was punctuated by two double bogeys on the front, including one on the par-3 7th. Theegala went into the sand on his tee shot, hit out to 24 feet past the hole, then three-putted with a missed three-footer for bogey.
• Akshay Bhatia imploded on the par-4 3rd with a quadruple bogey. Bhatia cranked his driver 329 yards over the right cart path, way out of bounds. Two shots later, he went into the water in front of the green. Three strokes later, he finally holed in for the snowman.
