Wyndham Championship round three: Overton has a lot of history on his side

If you’re thinking of taking on Jeff Overton Sunday, bone up on a little tournament history first. For the last eight years the third round leader has gone on to lift the trophy. For all that this course delivers birdies like confetti, it’s a democratic process and playing catchup is not as easy as you might think. With Overton sitting on a three-stroke lead, which we haven’t seen here since Shigeki Maruyama in 2003, you have a mighty challenge for the rest of the pack.

Still think Overton’s beatable? Of course he is, but it’ll likely only be if nerves and his lack of experience in this situation take a hold. He has been playing the best all-round game by far: top five for everything except finding fairways, where he comes a lowly 19th! What is particularly surprising is how well his putter is performing. It will need to keep humming Sunday, though, because Jeff knows he can’t rest on his laurels. He’s got to shoot plenty more birdies to win.

For certain someone in the chasing pack is going to try to hunt him down. The question is who?

It might be tough for Billy Mayfair to repeat his hot third round, including the ace on the eighth, but you can see him trying. With Anders Hansen I suspect there’s a battle in his mind as to how many risks he wants to take now he has the FedEx playoffs in his grasp. Carl Pettersson has no such worries and I can certainly see him putting in a strong bid for glory.

I’m not sure Maruyama, despite being bogey free all tournament, has quite got the firepower to go low enough, but Lucas Glover certainly does: he scored nine birdies Saturday and just needs to tidy up some errant habits on the back nine to be a monster threat.

So remember folks, it ain’t over till the fat golfer sings. Now where’s John Daly when you need him?