Keep that card

His second round was littered with six bogeys and a double-bogey, but Rickie Fowler righted the ship Saturday with the low round of the day. Four birdies over the final 13 holes offset a bogey on No. 5 in a round of 3-under-par 67, finishing four strokes off the lead.

Toss that card

One of the ugliest lines in a formidable pile of crummy scoresheets was that of Sergio Garcia, who barely made the cut, had a round of 3 under working through 11 holes before collapsing. He played several holes worth of golf on the par-4 15th. He hit three balls out of bounds and walked off with a 10. That sent him skyrocketing to a round of 11-over 81, after playing holes 12 through 15 in 8 over.

On the course with …

Hunter Mahan is proving to be a viable contender but a lousy finisher. Take No. 18 at Merion, which he double-bogeyed Thursday and bogeyed the next two days, including a bogey-bogey finish Saturday. Still, he posted a third-round 69 at stingy Merion, earning him a spot in Sunday's last group.

U.S. Open moment

Several groups behind the leaders, cheers could be heard as 19-year-old amateur Michael Kim was making four birdies in a six-hole stretch, capped by a 15-foot putt at No. 15 that lowered his score to even par. Kim, the Jack Nicklaus Award winner as the nation's top collegiate golfer at California, played the final 3 holes in 4 over, but his 54-hole score of 214 was 5 strokes better than Tiger Woods, who likely will extend his five-year drought without a major championship.

Eight is enough

The average score through two rounds on the par-70 Merion course was 74.7. After round 2 was completed Saturday morning, the cut line was 8 over, saving both defending champion Webb Simpson (5 over) and Masters champion Adam Scott (7 over) and keeping alive, albeit faintly, hopes for a Grand Slam.

Parade of (past) champions

Former Masters champion Zach Johnson was among 12 major champions who failed to make the cut, and he wasn't happy — not about his game, not about the way Merion was set up, and certainly not with the USGA.

"I would describe the whole golf course as manipulated," Johnson said after rounds of 74-77, his first weekend off at a U.S. Open since 2009 at Bethpage Black. "It just enhances my disdain for the USGA and how it manipulates golf courses."

As another example of how predicting winners is mostly guesswork in golf, three of the players who some thought would contend at Merion were Johnson, Graeme McDowell and Jim Furyk. All of them missed the cut by at least three shots. For McDowell, it was his second straight cut in a major in a year when he already has won twice.

Furyk had his worst U.S. Open, and it hurt, coming in his home state.

The most painful cut belonged to Stewart Cink, who played his last four holes in 4-over — including a double bogey at No. 18 — to miss by two shots.

Quote of the day

"I was happy just to be here, just to be back playing. And I hung in there, and I did what I had to do. It's hard out there."

— Matt Weibring, a Web.com Tour player and the 33-year-old son of former PGA Tour player D.A. Weibring, has been coping with Bell's palsy, a form of facial paralysis that has made it difficult for him to practice outside. Weibring, who qualified out of Dallas, had to return Saturday morning to complete his round and slipped over the cut line with two holes to play. But he made a birdie on the par-3 ninth hole, hung on for par and a 73 and earned two more days at Merion. The Open was only his second form of competition in the last two months.

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