John Deere Classic round three: A field full of menace for Green

Tim Clark says it’ll be a shootout. Troy Matteson likens it to a horse race. Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn into a funeral procession Sunday instead as nerves tighten the muscles and resolve of our leaders.

Putters really are proving the key weapon - the top five, based on putts per greens in regulation, are in the top six on the leaderboard. The wind that made things so tricky Saturday now looks like behaving itself, putting even more pressure on the flat stick to master faster greens.

The conditions look ripe for more low rounds and who’s to say we won’t have another Woody Austin style rush from the back? With so many players relatively untested in the heat of day four battle, the tough part is still working out which one that’ll be. Will experience triumph for once or are we in for another first timer?

Will Nathan Green break the season’s trend for Australian front-runners to sink at the last? He admits to being nervy in these situations and does not like that back nine at all. There’s some holes he just hasn’t figured out. His big plus, though, is his excellent and consistent putting. If he can match his Saturday score of 68, it could well be enough to see him through.

But I have enjoyed watching Clark sprint from nowhere man to top challenger, defying the neck injury that is clearly still a major problem. He says he is only 80% fit and is not even sure his neck is up to flying to the Open should he qualify. Yet there’s just a tissue between his putting stats and Green’s and if he can continue to blank out the neck I fancy him more. The worry is that the rest of his game has been gradually slipping, which could finally catch up with him.

The biggest dangers behind look to be: Jonathan Byrd, who knows what it takes to win and is sounding supremely confident now he has rediscovered his game; Brian Gay, subdued on Saturday but who managed nine birdies the day before; and Carl Pettersson, who let himself down badly Saturday but who rebounded with a 66 at his last event, the Travelers, after a similarly poor Saturday. Even though his putter went a little off key Saturday, Pettersson still managed 26 putts for the round, leaving him top putting dog. A punt on him at 19 might be a trading opportunity.

You can’t rule out Kenny Perry, but so far he has been consistently not quite good enough. Billy Mayfair has done well to get to where he is, but he hasn’t broken 29 putts per round and that’s not good enough either. And Neil Lancaster? Nah.

At the outside I think it’s down to the top 12, but none of the four sitting five shots back have done much in the putting department to suggest they’ll set the greens ablaze. Would be nice to see them try though.