• Day three updates with Xander Schauffele in overnight lead
• Scheffler shakes off ‘shock and fear’ of arrest to stay in hunt
• Live scoreboard | And feel free to drop Scott an email

“This could be the lowest scoring day in major-championship history,” opines Sky commentator Paul McGinley. No wind, soft greens, warm sunshine, all that. This being the case, you don’t want to be going backwards too much at any given point. So it’s a big putt for Bob MacIntyre on 3. Having dropped a shot at 2, he’s facing another bogey at 3. Unless he makes a 15-footer, he’ll effectively be making his fourth in his last five holes of play. But in it goes, and Scotland’s only representative here remains at -6.

Shane Lowry is this close to holding out from a greenside bunker at 6. That’s an end to his run of birdies, though. Tom Hoge drains a monster from downtown on 17, his fourth birdie of the day, and he’s -6. And there are opening birdies for Bryson DeChambeau and Austin Eckroat. A lot of players throwing darts, with the course there for the taking.

World No 1’s unlikely brush with the law has raised his profile to a level that his playing abilities alone would never be able to

For 27 years, 10 months, and 26 days the most interesting thing about Scottie Scheffler was his golf. And given that’s what he’s paid for, you might think it ought to be enough. But the truth is that ever since Scheffler rose to the top of the world rankings in March 2022 the game has wanted more from him. Trouble is, besides his faith, his family, and his attachment to a beaten-up old 2012 GMC Yukon, he does not have much else to give. Whisper it, but the truth is that a lot of people in the game worry that Scheffler, who many reckon is the best player of his generation, is just a little bit too boring to carry the sport.

And then he decided to take a detour into the westbound lane on his way through the gates to Valhalla on Friday morning. Last month Scheffler explained that he believed his victory at the Masters was meant to be because God had laid out “today’s plans many years ago, and I could do nothing to mess them up”. Well, either the Lord also takes his marching orders from Kentucky traffic cops, or this is more proof, if we needed it, that he moves in mysterious ways.