Akshay Bhatia two ahead at Pebble Beach as Sunday storm brews

The American's birdie blitz would see him card a four-under 68 around the iconic course, enough to take him 19 under for the tournament, two strokes ahead of a chasing pack consisting of Jake Knapp, Collin Morikawa and Sepp Straka.

Bhatia's early tee time sidestepped most of the treacherous conditions that blew in in the afternoon. As such, he dominated the front nine, rolling in six birdies to extend his overnight lead to five shots. The conditions rolled in and he dropped two shots coming home to get in before the worst of it.

"All in all, yeah, weird day," he told ESPN after the round.

"Felt like I lost some ground toward the end, but then I realised it just played so much harder for some of the guys that were in some of the last tee times."

The last groups really suffered in the high winds, with some taking 50 minutes to complete the 18th. Sunday's tee times have been brought forward one hour to accommodate the 44kph gusts and 15mm of rain that's predicted to sweep across Pebble Beach.

"It's not going to be pretty at all times," said Knapp, who managed a 66.

"You're going to have some funky stuff happen and just have to deal with it. I think anytime you get bad elements and stuff like that you just have to do a good job of not letting it bug you."

Further down the leaderboard, Scottie Scheffler and defending champion Rory McIlroy are eight and ten shots off the pace, respectively.