Helped by a hole-in-one, American Peter Jacobsen kept alive the chance of becoming the oldest-ever winner of a major title at Pinehurst today.
The 51-year-old former Ryder Cup player, who earned a spot in the field by capturing last year's US Seniors Open, aced the 175-yard ninth hole en route to a sparkling third round 69.
It lifted Jacobsen onto the four over total of 214 and while that was still six strokes off the pace all the players in front of him had yet to play the back nine of a course bordering between ferociously difficult and diabolically so.
Predictions of an over par winning score in the event for the first time since 1978 were starting to look spot on. Nine players were under par after the first round, five at halfway and that came down to three - defending champion Retief Goosen and little-known American Jason Gore, 818th in the world, at two under, and Olin Browne, himself ranked 300th, at one under.
The world number one was still lurking, though. After bogeys at two of his first three holes Tiger Woods parred the next seven, then birdied the 476-yard par four 11th to return to two under.
Alongside him - and now leading European - was Peter Hedblom, the Swede who set the course record with a 66 yesterday and who qualified at Walton Heath 12 days ago with a finish of eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie. He had another hat-trick of birdies from the 10th and was joint eighth, while Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia were a stroke further back and both three over for the day.
Luke Donald had two more shots to make up. The only players older than Jacobsen to lift major trophies are 48-year-old Julius Boros at the 1968 US PGA, Old Tom Morris in the 1867 Open championship and Jack Nicklaus at the 1986 Masters.
Goosen was seeking to join a pretty elite band too - since the Second World War only Ben Hogan and Curtis Strange have won the US Open back-to-back and he would also be just the sixth to have three victories in the event.
Willie Anderson, Bobby Jones, Hogan and Nicklaus have one and Hale Irwin, the oldest winner of the US Open at 45 in 1990, three. The South African birdied the fourth, but failed to get up and down from sand at the short sixth and fell back alongside burly former Walker Cup player Gore, who bogeyed the first after driving into rough, but steadied and regained the stroke on the fifth.
On his hole-in-one Jacobsen said: "As it left the club it was right on line. "At first I thought it might have hit the flag and gone over, but the fans then raised their arms like 'touchdown'.
"If I said I thought I could win coming in here I'd be lying, but I thought I could make the cut." While Woods was still menacing, Goosen was not yet coming under threat from the other players ahead of him in the world.
Vijay Singh, the closest to him at halfway, made a double bogey on the driveable third. He chose to lay up, then pitched over the green and three-putted. Pars on the other eight holes on the outward half put him two over.
Woods had escaped disqualification, but had come in for stinging criticism from fans and commentators for his scraping of the ninth green with his putter in annoyance at missing a putt in the second round. Officials decided it did not constitute a serious breach of etiquette because it was a one-off and he did make a small attempt to repair the damage, but his behaviour was being monitored and tossing his club after missing the green at the first today did not help.
Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els looked out of the running at eight over and nine over following rounds of 72. Bizarrely, Mickelson birdied the toughest hole, the 16th, but triple-bogeyed the easiest - the long fourth. He went out of bounds with his drive there. Els was one under going out, but four-putted the 10th for a double bogey seven and needed three attempts to get onto the raised green at the 13th to drop two more shots.
"Anybody within probably five shots (after the round) has a realistic shot," commented Mickelson. He had to wait to see if that included him.
Paul McGinley shot a third round 71 to be nine over while Graeme McDowell's 72 left him on 10 over.