"Some days you leave the course happy. Some days you don't," Mark Calcavecchia said as he came into the media tent on Saturday.
It may sound strange, but he definitely wasn't happy as he left the TPC Twin Cities, even though he was 14 under par for 36 holes and tied with David Frost for the lead in the 3M Championship.
Both of the co-leaders shot 8-under-par 64's on Friday, and they matched each other again on Saturday, with a couple of 66's. That adds up to 130, a total that has them two strokes clear of the threesome that's tied for third place: Kirk Hanefield (68-64--132), David Peoples (66-66) and John Cook (65-67).
One further behind, tied for sixth at 133, are Steve Haskins, who eagled the 18th hole for a 66, and Jeff Sluman, who shot 68.
First-round leader Tommy Armour III seemed to have lost the magic. After his opening 63, he could do no better than a 71 on Saturday, and he's mired in a tie for eighth at 134.
One of the players tied with him is Mark O'Meara, the former Masters and British Open champ. He birdied 7 of 8 holes in one stretch on the way to a 66.
Bernhard Langer, the defending champion this weekend and also the hottest player on the Champions Tour (he won two majors, the British Senior Open and the U.S. Senior Open, in the last two weeks), is tied for 17th at 137, after a second-round 69.
No one has ever successfully defending a title in the 17 years since the senior tour came to the Twin Cities, and Langer conceded that it's not going to happen this year, either.
"You need to be 10 under (134) to have a chance tomorrow," he suggested.
The two locals in the field well down on the leaderboard.
John Harris, a Champions Tour regular for the past eight years who last week signed on to be the University of Minnesota's Director of Golf, bounced back from a 76 on Day 1 to shoot 70.
It was a distinct improvement, yet it was still another frustrating round. Not only did it include a double-bogey 6 at the 10th hole, but he capped it off with a three-putt par at No. 18. Harris isn't the longest hitter on the Champions Tour, but he's longer than most -- and so far he's 2 over par on the par-5's.
Mike Barge, the Hazeltine National teaching pro who earned his place in the 3M Championship by shooting 66 in a qualifier last Monday at Victory Links, shot a 75 on Saturday and is at 148 overall.
Calcavecchia was unhappy -- steaming, actually -- because he had just bogied the final two holes of the round, and one of them was a par-5. So instead of being two or three strokes ahead going into Sunday's final round, he was in a dead heat with Frost.
"It's a good thing there's no more holes left, because I'd probably bogey the next one, too," he said. "I'm so mad right now."
For 16 holes, however, it was like shooting ducks (birdies) in a barrel for Calcavecchia. Having blistered the 7,114-yard TPC layout to the tune of 8 under on Day 1, he was 8 under through 16 on Day 2 and appeared headed for another 64, or maybe a 63, considering that 18 is a reachable par-5.
But he fanned his 6-iron tee shot at the 168-yard, par-3 17th, dumping it into a bunker, from which he had virtually no chance of getting it up and down.
Then at 18, he hit a good drive and had 226 yards to the pin. It was an ideal position, but he mis-clubbed and hit 3-iron into the bunker to the left and behind the green.
"I was dead," Calcavecchia said afterward. "There was no way I could get it close from there, unless I hit the pin. That was what I was trying to do."
He missed the pin, though, and his bunker shot went 70 feet beyond the hole. From there, he left his first putt in the fringe/rough in back of the green, and needed two more from there to claim his 6.
Meanwhile, Frost was just plodding along -- if you can call 14 under for two rounds "plodding" -- staying close behind Calcavecchia (they played in the same threesome Friday and Saturday, and will be paired together again Sunday). And when the 34-hole leader slipped on the last two holes, Frost was able to pull even.
Hitting 15 of 18 greens in regulation, Frost made no bogeys on Saturday, and has none for the tournament. He looked as if he were going to drop a stroke at the 10th, but saved himself with a 30-foot par putt.
Based on the way he played the last few holes, Frost should probably be leading.
At the 15th, he hit a 7-iron to within 10 feet and made the putt for birdie. He then laid up well back at the 16th and had another 7-iron approach (Calcavecchia hit a lob wedge) to about 8 feet.
Frost, one of the best putters on the Champions Tour, missed that one, and he missed again for birdie from 12 feet at the 17th. He knocked his second shot onto the 18th green, about 25 feet away, and two-putted from there for a closing birdie.
In their post-round interviews, both Calcavecchia and Frost speculated that the winning score was likely to be somewhere around 20 under par, meaning that either of them would have to shoot about 66 to claim first place.
Hanefield, who has spent most of his adult life as a club pro in New England, and has contended for National Club Pro championships, played in the PGA and U.S. Open and won his share of state titles, put the difficulty of winning on the senior tour in perspective shortly after he finished off his 64.
"I've played this game before, and at a pretty high level," he noted. "But when you shoot -- what am I at? -- 132 for two rounds, and you have to shoot 64, or something like it, in the next round to win, you know you're playing in a different league."
Basically, it was another way of saying: These guys really are good!
For complete results, and live hole-by-hole scoring, go to pgatour.com.