PGA Championship 2013 Standings: Day 3 Highlights, Top Contenders and More

After two days of allowing the world's best golfers to run rampant on its surface, Oak Hill Country Club finally bit back during Saturday's third round of the 2013 PGA Championship.

Course conditions, which had been exponentially softened by rains Thursday and Friday, hardened as the heat ratcheted up and the Pittsford, N.Y., sky had nary a cloud. Greens were swifter, rough was tougher to cut out of and the course played a vastly different style than it did a day previously.

There was one man who stood above the test. Jim Furyk carded a two-under 68, moving to nine-under overall for the event on a day where many players went backward. The 43-year-old major championship stalwart carded five birdies against three bogeys, atoning for a slow start to pull ahead of the pack.

Furyk holds a one-shot lead over 36-hole leader Jason Dufner, who shot a one-over 71—eight strokes worse than the course-record 63 he shot Friday. Dufner struggled for most of the round but managed to save par on 14 holes amid some accuracy issues. 

Swedes Henrik Stenson and Jonas Blixt will make up the penultimate group Sunday. Here is a look at how the rest of the leaderboard shakes out through 54 holes.

With that out of the way, let's check in on the day's action and recap how these players found themselves sitting atop the leaderboard at Oak Hill. 

Top Contenders

1. Jim Furyk (-9)

At age 43, Furyk is at a far different stage in his career than the similarly aged Phil Mickelson. Where Lefty still comes in with the expectation of excellence every week, Furyk is a fringe contender who hangs around every once in a while. He had two straight top-10 results coming into the PGA, but no one expected him to be 18 holes away from possibly his first major championship in a decade.

The 2003 U.S. Open winner headed into the day a part of the gaggle tied at seven-under. He's the only one who walked away with an under-par score on the round.

It certainly didn't look like that would be the case early on. Furyk's third round started in just about the worst possible scenario, the American carding consecutive bogeys on Nos. 2 and 3 to fall all the way to five-under for the event. It looked like the inevitable fall of a veteran player who had a fantastic story early, only for the pressures of a major-championship Saturday to prove too much.

Furyk quickly righted the ship.

He got back on the birdie train at No. 4 and again at No. 8, getting himself back to even for the day. With Dufner scuffling a bit at that point—he had just gone 37 on the front nine—Furyk suddenly stepped to the 10th tee box with a chance to take the lead. Left with a tricky putt with a steep left break, he hit the left-mid part of the cup and took his first outright lead of the day.

That wouldn't be the last time Furyk's excellent putting was on display. Another birdie on No. 12 brought him to nine-under, as he finished another difficult one, this time from at a distance. 

He fell back into a tie with Dufner after a poor all-around effort on the par-three 15th that led to a bogey, however, again leaving him to do work if he wanted a 54-hole lead. Furyk would again find himself with that opportunity, putter in hand and a decent stroke staring him in the face on No. 17. Though relatively straight, he needed the correct speed—and nailed it.

That putt, along with another beauty to finalize the score on No. 18, is the overarching reason Furyk is the favorite heading into Sunday. Something tells me if he putts at somewhere even close to that level again in Round 4, he'll do more than capture his first top-five in his PGA Championship career. 

2. Jason Dufner (-8)

While Dufner is undoubtedly disappointed to be looking up instead of down on the leaderboard, the 36-year-old Cleveland native has to feel like he avoided potential disaster Saturday. At varying points in the round, Dufner's grip on the leaderboard was loosening, his game sinking into proverbial quicksand.

No more evident of that was his miserable outing on the par-four fifth. Thanks to four straight pars to start the day, he walked to the fifth tee with a three-stroke lead over the field. Dufner walked away from that hole one stroke ahead.

With a tee shot into the hazard and a few paltry attempts to save, there had to be visions of his past collapses dancing in his head. Dufner held a five-stroke lead at the PGA heading into the 15th tee on Sunday but subsequently shot three straight bogeys and eventually lost in a playoff to Keegan Bradley.

Furyk played the Bradley role and pilfered the lead, but Dufner somehow kept his game from imploding. Undoubtedly critical to that was his birdie on the par-four seventh. Left with a difficult downhill slope with a left bend, Dufner hit the center of the cup to somewhat stabilize his day. 

A bogey on the eighth left him with a 37 on the front, but he was again not too far away from recovering.

After hitting a beautiful approach shot to the middle of the green, Dufner stopped for a moment when lining up his putt to pick up leaves from the surface. It turned out they were lucky. He knocked down the putt to retake a share of the lead, ending the topsy-turvy portion of his round en route to finishing with eight straight pars.

Of the top four golfers, none of them has a PGA Championship. Considering, at certain points, this round felt like it was going off the rails and Dufner somehow saved it, let's just say we're not anywhere close to counting him out yet. 

3. Henrik Stenson (-7)

While he sits two strokes behind Furyk, Stenson has to feel great about how the championship has gone this week. He's been one of the field's most consistent players, carding under-par scores in each of the three rounds—a feat only Furyk can match.

And yet it feels almost as if Stenson has been completely off the radar this week. His rounds have been ones of quiet efficiency, the 37-year-old Swede carding a bogeyless second round and again avoiding many over-par numbers Saturday. 

Stenson's day, like many of his counterparts, didn't start all that well, though. He carded his first bogey since Thursday afternoon on No. 2, a surprise considering it's been one of the week's easiest holes. A drove of pars followed before Stenson righted the ship with an under-par score on the eighth.

While he went back-to-back with birdies on Nos. 13 and 14 to make a quick run at the lead, a bogey on the par-three 15th took him right back out of contention. In fact, the most interesting part of Stenson's round was arguably whatever voodoo trick he was trying on the golf ball early in his round.

I have a feeling I'm not alone in having wished the ball would have levitated. 

Alas, Stenson's wizardry will have to be left to the golf course. He's looking for his first major this week at Oak Hill, having finished inside the top five just once during his PGA Championship career. With two straight second-place finishes heading into the event, perhaps Sunday will mark Stenson's first title of 2013 and his first major. 

4. Jonas Blixt (-6)

Don't worry, I'll allow you all to read Wikipedia before we begin. Done? OK, good. Because Blixt's sensational third round amid top-tier players nosediving around him deserves plenty of recognition.

The 29-year-old Swede, playing in just his second career major championship, bested everyone in the field not named Dustin Johnson en route to shooting a four-under 66. Only Kevin Streelman matched his score on the day, where Blixt was a bastion of efficiency amid a less amenable course.

Opening his round in 15th place at two-under for the tournament, Blixt's day got off to a great start with a birdie on the par-four first. Had he went 17 straight with pars the remainder of the day, the Swede's day would have been seen as a marvelous success.

But it took until all of about hole No. 3 until fans realized they were watching something special. Way left off the tee on the difficult par-three, Blixt left himself with an untenable putt for par that would have been a satisfying two-putt. Instead, he hit what would be one of many highlight strokes on a career-best day at a major.

In part buoyed by the momentum of that putt, Blixt went on to card two more birdies on No. 5 and No. 9 to make the turn at 32. While he wouldn't challenge the course record or anything crazy, par saves proved just as critical as birdies Saturday.

Plus, Blixt saved his best trick for last.

Sitting in the woods at No. 18 after his driver went haywire, he hit a scintillating iron that could arguably be the shot of the weekend. He somehow put enough spin and touch on the loft to have it stick within 10 feet, leading to an easy birdie putt to finish his day.

While Blixt is almost certainly the least likely of the top players to win on Sunday, at least he'll always have that triumphant moment. 

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