Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy both have third-round meltdowns

The players first and second in the world golf rankings went at each other at Merion Golf Club Saturday in the third round of the U.S. Open. Is it too strong to say both lost? Certainly neither felt like a winner.

Rory McIlroy, No. 2 in the world, shot 5-over-par 75. The man ahead of him in the rankings, if not the Open standings, did even worse. World No. 1 Tiger Woods finished with a 76.

And so, as commentator Johnny Miller said during the NBC telecast, "Tiger's chances are toast." He's at 9-over 219 after three rounds, in a tie for 31st. McIlroy is just a stroke better at 218, in a tie for 25th, and his chances of winning this 113th Open are not that much better than Woods'.

"It certainly is frustrating, because I certainly was feeling like I was playing well this week," Woods said, "and I didn't make the putts I needed to make . . . I missed a boatload of putts within 10 feet."

Woods has 14 major victories but is without a win in any major since the 2008 U.S. Open.

"At Augusta," he said of the Masters, "I was pretty close, had the lead at one point, and I hit that flag [in the second round] and ended up in the water. This week, I was cleaning up the rounds, and [would have been] one shot off the lead starting the last day without any three-putts."

McIlroy, the 2011 Open winner at Congressional, and Woods both birdied the first hole Saturday. McIlroy had one more birdie on the day; Tiger had no more.

"If you're not on your game 100 percent," McIlroy said, "you get on the wrong side of the greens, and it's just frightening. I didn't feel I played too badly . . . If you're not 100 percent on top of your game, it's going to expose your flaws and weaknesses."

With seven bogeys apiece, McIlroy and Woods were very exposed.

Asked if Merion was as penal a setup as he has played, Woods answered, "Most definitely."

"Because of the pins. The long holes are playing really long, and the short holes obviously are short, but the thing is, the [pin positions] they give us are really tough."

Michael Kim, an amateur from the University of California, is 4 over for the tournament. When Kim's college coach, Steve Desimone, was asked recently if Kim was the next Tiger, he responded, "Please not the next Tiger; [that would be] a Stanford man, in Cal territory."