ROUGH DAY: Sergio Garcia, hacking out of the rough on 12, took a 10 on No. 15 during his third-round 75 yesterday at the U.S. Open. He is 11-over. (Getty Images)
ARDMORE, Pa. — When Sergio Garcia leaves Merion after today’s final round, he likely never will want to see the 15th hole again.
Garcia took a 10 on the par-4 15th hole yesterday when he pumped three balls out of bounds off the tee to the left of the fairway. That makes Garcia 10-over-par on the 15th this week with the triple-bogey 8 he took on it in Thursday’s opening round and the par he had in the second round.
Including the errant tee shot left he hit on Thursday, Garcia has hit four shots of bounds on the hole this week.
Garcia, who shot 42 on his front nine, which was the back, rallied to shoot a 3-under 33 on the front nine and is 11-over par for the tournament. Had he been even par on 15, Garcia would be just two shots out of the lead entering today’s final round.
“Well, what does that say about my game that I can make a 10? Forget about the rest,’’ Garcia said jokingly. “When I made an 8 on Thursday I hit a lot of bad shots. Funny enough, I only hit one bad shot today and I made 10. My first shot was into the wind and it went out of bounds. My second one I thought it was even better and it went out of bounds by five inches. And then the third one wasn’t great.
“After that, the round came out nicely.’’
Garcia said he never changed his club on the 15th tee, hitting 5-wood each time.
* Rickie Fowler played his way into contention with a 3-under-par 67, the lowest round of the day, to stand at 3-over for the tournament, four shots out of the lead.
“I finally kind of pieced everything together,’’ Fowler said. “I like where I am and am excited for [today].’’
Oddly, Fowler’s playing partners were Garcia, who took that 10 on the 15th hole, and Robert Karlsson, who shot an 86 — the highest score posted all week.
“Robert just had one of those days,’’ Fowler said. “It was fun to be around those guys and it says a lot about who they are the way they handled themselves around me when I was playing well and they were struggling.’’
* It has been an amazing week for the amateurs, with four of them making the cut and Michael Kim actually in contention at 4-over par after shooting 71.
Cheng-Tsung Pan, a 21-year-old from Chinese Taipei who is a junior at the University of Washington, is 9-over after shooting 75.
“Low amateur, I don’t know, it doesn’t mean that much to me,” Pan said before the round. “I just want to compete with the pro field. I want to see how well I play in the professional tour and how much different it is compared to an amateur event. That’s what I’m here for.’’
Pan started the third round at 4-over, just five shots behind the lead.
“I love seeing my name on the scoreboard, it’s pretty special to me,” Pan said.
One of Kim’s Cal teammates, Michael Weaver, made the cut on the number at 8-over and shot 78 yesterday to stand at 16-over. The fourth amateur to make it was 22-year-old Irishman Kevin Phelan, who was born in New York City. He’s 16-over after shooting another 78.
* Jay Don Blake, the oldest player in the field at 54 and a sectional qualifier, missed the cut after shooting 80 in his second round, and he left with a bitter taste in his mouth about the Merion course set-up.
“I totally respect the course. I’m not sure about the USGA,’’ he said. “But that’s what they do. They make it tough, they make it pretty brutal, pretty penalizing. They put some pins in some spots that you’re hitting 220-yard shots to about a five or eight-foot area.’’
Blake, who has played in 12 U.S. Opens, dating back to his first in 1980, said he would like to play it again.
“I would love for a little bit of revenge,’’ he said.
* The mere fact Matt Weibring made the U.S. Open field this week is impressive. The fact he made the cut is somewhat remarkable.
Weibring, the 33-year-old son of former PGA Tour pro D.A. Weibring, got into the field through sectional qualifying after having not played golf for nearly three months because he contracted Bell’s palsy.
He shot 75-73 in the first two rounds to make the got on the number at 8-over par in his first U.S. Open.
“This is my first golf tournament in two-and-a-half months,’’ Weibring said. “I was just happy to be here, just to be back playing. It’s hard out there, [but] I managed to sneak in to play the weekend, so I’m excited.’’
Weibring plays his golf on the Web.com Tour.
* This is the first year since 1997 that a local qualifier failed to make the U.S. Open cut. There were 20 of them in the field. … The course setup for the third round featured the par-3 13th hole set at 98 yards. The only other time a U.S. Open had a hole measure less than 100 yards was No. 7 at Pebble Beach in 2010. By contrast, the fourth hole measured 604 yards for the third round yesterday and No. 18 was 530 yards with a 260-yard carry over the quarry to reach the fairway.