Lowry leads the US Open after day 3

Irishman Shane Lowry leads the US Open on five under par after a truncated third round

Shane Lowry leads the US Open by two shots after a truncated third round due to the weather stoppages on Thursday. He will return on Sunday to complete the final four holes of his third round.

In second place is Andrew Landry on 3 under, who has five more third-round holes to play.

Tied in 3rd on 2 under are Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and Dustin Johnson, all of whom have also yet to finish their third rounds.

Brandon Grace, who shot a third round 66, is the sixth and final man under par thus far.

The top six on the leaderboard therefore contains no previous Major winners.

For three men listed there a Major win may be considered overdue - 43-year-old Lee Westwood, 36-year-old Sergio Garcia, and Dustin Johnson. Between them they have recorded nine runners-up finishes in Majors.

At the other end of the spectrum is 28-year-old Andrew Landry. Ranked 624th in the world, he has yet to record even a top 25 finish on the PGA Tour.

Jason Day, shot 66 in the third round, and lies tied in 7th on one over.

The lack of wind, and Thursday’s deluge having softened the course, makes it likely that the winner will be under par, something that was not necessarily anticipated at the start of the tournament.

To make up time lost, play in the 3rd round started from the 1st and 10th and is being played in threeballs.

Half the field had only begun their second rounds on Saturday morning after lengthy rain delays on Thursday. Others had to finish their rounds.

Louis Oosthuizen had three holes to complete in his second round when he returned to the course on Saturday morning. He made par, par, birdie to follow up his first-round 75 with a second round of 65. His 65 included eight birdies, 14 greens in regulation and 27 putts.

It matched Daniel Summerhays’ second-round 65 made on Friday. These rounds were one shot off the course record set by Johnny Miller in the final round of the 1973 US Open.

In all, 22 players shot in the 60s in the second round.

In last year’s US Open at Chambers Bay, Oosthuizen opened with 77 and then shot 66 in the second round.

If Oosthuizen took heart from what he had done in the last, Dustin Johnson will have to battle his past memories.

This was ninth time that 36-hole leader Dustin Johnson has been in the top five after 36 holes in a Major since 2010. That is more than anyone else. But he has yet to win a Major, and has built a reputation for final-day collapses.

Sometimes he has started his final-day horrors early, such as at the US Open of 2010 when he started the fourth round three shots ahead, a lead which swiftly vanished after a triple bogey on the 2nd, and a double bogey at the third, en route to a 82.

Other times he has left it late. In last year’s US Open he three putted the final green from 12ft. In the 2010 USPGA he incurred a two-shot penalty on the final hole for grounding his club in a bunker, which lost him a spot in the play-off.