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Bellerive's Final Exam Looms Large

As the final round of the BMW Championship dawns, the players' biggest opponent may not be each other, but a Bellerive Country Club that is finally showing its teeth. After days of receptive conditions that allowed for low scores, the course is firming up, and its most dangerous holes are ready to pounce. The champion crowned on Sunday won't just be the player who makes the most birdies, but the one who survives Bellerive's final, brutal exam.

The shift in the course's personality was not lost on the players Saturday. "The course is, it's still receptive, but definitely getting a little bit firmer," Rory McIlroy noted after his third round. For the field, this means less spin on approach shots, drives that run out further (sometimes into trouble), and slicker greens where every putt is a test of nerve. The soft, target-practice conditions of the early rounds are gone, replaced by a challenge that demands precision and strategy.

Nowhere is that challenge more apparent than on the par-3 6th hole. Statistically the hardest hole on the course this week, the 215-yard monster has been a round-wrecker. With a pond guarding the front and right, a deep bunker behind the green, and a treacherous bailout area to the long-left, there is no safe place to miss. Through three rounds, the hole has surrendered a mere 17 birdies while claiming 36 bogeys or worse. A par here on Sunday will feel like a victory, and a misstep could see a lead evaporate in an instant.

The firming conditions will also amplify the pressure on Bellerive's finishing stretch. The heavily-bunkered 18th hole, for example, will demand a world-class short game. McIlroy provided a preview on Saturday with a spectacular sand save that nearly found the bottom of the cup. That kind of short-game wizardry won't just be for show on Sunday; with firmer greens and tougher hole locations, it will be a prerequisite for anyone hoping to lift the trophy.