PGA Championship 2013: What To Expect from Golf's Biggest Superstars on Day 3

The 2013 PGA Championship has yielded a mixed bag of results for golf's biggest names. 

While Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have struggled to remain in contention at Oak Hill, stars such as Justin Rose and Adam Scott are squarely in the spotlight.

Oak Hill has played much more easily than both Merion and Muirfield and that has opened up the competition to a wide variety of players. With plenty of parity in the field, it really is anyone's race as Day 3 gets underway. 

Here's a look at the current leaderboard. 

With the tournament hitting the home stretch, the time is now for the biggest stars in the game to make their final push for a major championship. The pressure will be on every player  as they know that their chance to win can get away from them with just one poor round. 

Here's a look at what to expect from the biggest superstars left in the competition. 

Adam Scott

The 2013 Masters tournament winner didn't live up to the lofty expectations that he set for himself in Round 1. But then again, matching a round in which he shot five consecutive birdies on Nos. 4-8 would have been an incredible feat anyway. 

Scott came out on Day 2 and put together a solid round that included birdies on Nos. 2, 6, 10, 13 and 16. That was the good news. The bad news was that he followed up three of those birdies with a bogey on the next hole to finish at two-under for the day.

It wasn't a fantastic day, especially when you consider what Jason Dufner did in scoring a 63. But you still have to like Scott's chances to compete through the weekend. Through two rounds, he's birdied 10 of the 18 holes at Oak Hill. 

With the Aussie showing that he can go for birdie on more than half the holes, expect him to continue to push Dufner for the lead. 

Day 3 Projection: 67

Justin Rose

Speaking of 2013 major winners, Justin Rose is right in the thick of things again. With a U.S. Open win in tow, he'll be trying to join elite company by winning both the U.S. Open and PGA Championship in the same year, per Justin Ray of ESPN.

It didn't look like Rose would be able to join those former greats when he started his second day. Teeing off on No. 10 first, he started off the day with back-to-back bogeys. As he told the PGA Tour, he was just trying to survive at that point. 

Turns out he was ready to do much more than survive. The 33-year-old was lights out on the back nine, racking up six birdies to finish four-under for the day. The PGA Tour tweeted out his incredible back-nine scorecard. 

Rejuvenated by an excellent finish to his day, Rose should be ready to come out aggressively and post another low score.

Day 3 Projection: 66

Phil Mickelson

"Lefty" was a popular pick heading into this tournament after his dramatic win at the Open Championship but he's done little to show that he can win at Oak Hill. 

After a dismal performance in Round 1, he came back with the exact same score of 71 on Friday. Despite the similar score, Mickelson at least evened out his game the second time around. 

On Day 1 Mickelson scored double bogey twice with another bogey to negate the four birdies that he scored. On Day 2 he avoided those meltdowns with just two bogeys for the round but only scored one birdie on No. 13. 

It's unlikely that he will be able to compete with the rest of the pack—he is 11 shots back from Dufner at the top of the leaderboard—but there's no reason why he can't turn his more consistent round into one that beats par on Day 3.

Day 3 Projection: 69