Golf:Four birdies in the first seven holes from Korean Bae Sang-moon showed that Rory McIlroy again had nothing to fear from the Congressional course as the final round of the US Open began. The 22-year-old's bid to become the youngest winner of the title since Bobby Jones in 1923 was not resuming until 8.20pm Irish time and some morning rain kept conditions soft.

Bae birdied the short second and then had three more in a row from the fifth to lift himself from eight over par to four over — 18 adrift of McIlroy, who takes an eight-shot lead over YE Yang into the closing 18 holes.

Luke Donald, whose world number one spot was under threat again with Lee Westwood in joint third place, birdied the first, but bogeyed two holes later to return to seven over. Even though he was down in 61st he was ahead of five-time runner-up Phil Mickelson, who ran up a six on the long sixth to be eight over.

Mickelson had ruined any hopes of climbing back into contention with a third round 77, while Donald had played the last five holes in a cumulative 11 over — and on the 18th alone had had two double bogeys and a bogey.

USGA officials, meanwhile, tipped their cap to the brilliance the runaway leader but said Mother Nature had a hand in the low scoring this week at Congressional.

"It's our position that the golf course was more forgiving this week because of the weather that we experienced, not because Congressional is not a worthy golf course for a US Open," Tom O'Toole, chairman of the championship committee, explained. "It's a big, long, difficult golf course. These players caught it on a week when it's very soft."

O'Toole cited a double whammy of oppressive heat last week that kept officials from getting the golf course to top speed since they had to protect the health of the greens, and rain this week that softened putting surfaces, allowing approach shots a better chance of stopping close to the pins.

"I think the difference is Mother Nature," said O'Toole. "It's an outdoor game. We've got greens that are very receptive, and these guys can just flat play. They're that good. And one of them is obviously exceptional this week."

"You've got one heck of a player playing some great golf, period," Jeff Hall, USGA managing director of rules and competition, added. "If he wasn't in the field, we'd be talking about a pretty tight US Open."

Rory is just obviously playing at a level that's a bit above everybody else this week. Hat's off to him."