How do you pronounce Oosthuizen? Leader

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland - The last test for Louis Oosthuizen was his second shot to the 17th green at St. Andrews, where the pin was planted perilously behind the Road Hole bunker.

He safely sent his 5-iron through the green and onto the 18th tee, where it stopped about six feet from where Paul Casey was about to hit. Lee Westwood walked to the ball and acted as if he was going to smash it back at Oosthuizen.

Even that might not have stopped Oosthuizen on Saturday in the British Open.

Oosthuizen opened with a nervous bogey, then settled down quickly on another windswept afternoon for a 3-under 69 that gave him a 4-shot lead over Casey and a chance to become the first player in 46 years to win his first major at the home of golf.

Ernie Els called him Saturday morning to wish him well. Gary Player left him a message at his hotel. Maybe it's time for Oosthuizen, 27, to start thinking he could be the next South African with a claret jug.

"I don't think anyone was thinking I was going to be up there," said Oosthuizen (pronounced WUHST-hy-zen). "You've heard yourself - no one can actually say my surname, so they don't even know who I am out there.

"It's great being up there. I just want to enjoy everything about it. I loved it out there."

Oosthuizen was at 15-under 201. A victory Sunday would make him the first player since Tony Lema in 1964 to win his first major at St. Andrews.

"The Open at St. Andrews would be something special," Oosthuizen said. "It's one of those things you dream of."

Casey went out in 31 when the wind was at its strongest, and mostly into his face. He completed a bogey-free round of 67 that put him in the final group of a major for the first time. He was at 11-under 205.

It might be a two-man race between players who have never seriously challenged in a major.

Oosthuizen was 7 shots clear of Martin Kaymer of Germany, who had a 68 and was alone in third. Another shot behind, 8 shots off the lead, were Henrik Stenson (67), Alejandro Canizares (71), and Westwood (71), who didn't make a birdie on the front nine but did well enough to at least stay in the game.

Americans have won six of the last eight Opens at St. Andrews, but they have disappeared in this one. Dustin Johnson birdied his last two holes for a 69 and was 9 shots behind.

Tiger Woods, who won the last two times at St. Andrews by a combined 13 shots, has not been within 4 shots of the lead all week, and he wasn't even close Saturday. He had four long eagle putts - only one of them on a par 5 - and three-putted for par on three of them to shoot 73. He was 12 shots behind, sure to match his longest start to the season without a victory, seven tournaments.

Phil Mickelson, who had a chance at the start of the week to go to No. 1 in the world, was another shot behind. Whatever momentum he had was lost with a 5-iron that he hooked out of bounds for a double bogey on No. 16 en route to a 70.

The South African heritage at golf's oldest championship dates to Bobby Locke's winning four times in a nine-year stretch after World War II. Player won the claret jug three times, and Els was the most recent winner, in 2002.

Oosthuizen, whose career was made possible by the Ernie Els Foundation at Fancourt, recalls watching highlights of the Big Easy's tough win at Muirfield and getting goose bumps.

All he felt on the first hole Saturday were nerves.

He had to wait 28 hours from his last putt Friday to his opening shot Saturday - "it felt like a week and a half," he said - and Oosthuizen promptly three-putted for bogey as his lead dwindled to 2 shots.

But he eased his way along the humps and mounds, flashing that gap-tooth smile and following Els' advice to enjoy himself. Oosthuizen earned his first birdie on the seventh hole, then added a surprise birdie late in his round with a 60-foot putt.

Even with a 4-shot lead - the largest 54-hole advantage in the Open since Woods led by six in 2000 - the real test comes Sunday.

Casey ran off three birdies in a four-hole stretch early in his round, and got as close as one shot with a two-putt birdie on the ninth. But he had to settle for nothing better than par on the back nine, missing a five-foot birdie on the 18th.

"I'm having a great time, and I'm going to go out there [Sunday] and enjoy myself and have a good attitude," Casey said. "I know what this golf course can do. It can give you some great moments, and it can give you some horrible ones."