ST ANDREWS, Scotland -Marc Leishman, Louis Oosthuizen and Zach Johnson are headed to a playoff to decide the British Open.
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Oosthuizen, the 2010 Open champion by a massive seven shots also at St Andrews, missed just one green all day on the notorious road-hole 17th.
World number two Jordan Spieth, who is seeking the third leg of an unprecedented calendar grand slam after victories in the Masters in April and last month’s US Open, was just one off the lead, with three-time major victor Padraig Harrington another shot back.
His par putt missed, making the 18th a must-birdie hole to get into overtime. “My speed control was really what cost me this week”.
“It’s never nice to lose a playoff”, Oosthuizen moaned.
Leishman, who had also covered the front nine in 31 and birdied the 10th and 12th, briefly held a two-shot lead when Johnson bogeyed the 17th, his right foot slipping on his second shot as a rain shower passed through.
Adam Scott remained within touching distance of the Claret Jug throughout the day but his challenge officially came to an end with a bogey on the 17 having dropped three shots in his last four holes.
Australia’s Jason Day also needed a birdie on the 18th to join the play-off but his putt fell short to leave him tied fourth with Spieth. Spieth’s approach sucked back into the Valley of Sin, from which the 21-year-old could not make the putt. I was a bit disappointed with bogeying eight and 12 from really nowhere, two stupid mistakes I made. “I can’t wait for it to come back here again”.
Those hoping for history had to settle, instead, for one of the most riveting 72-hole, five-day Open Championship horse races ever at the place where golf was born.
Another amateur is surging into contention at the British Open.
Leishman and Oosthuizen both narrowly missed with long-range birdie attempts on the second, but former Masters champion Johnson made no mistake, holing from 20 feet to edge a shot ahead of Oosthuizen. He then rolled in the birdie putt to pull even with Johnson and Leishman, watching from alongside the clubhouse. “I hit into the bunker so many times this week and that cost me a shot every time”, Lahiri said in an Asian Tour release. I’m not saying that I played badly, but I didn’t feel like I was totally smooth and totally on. “It’s a great platform for us to give back to the community that started me in the game and other communities”. “He’s a phenomenal talent, and I’m telling you right now, he’s a better person than he is a golfer”.
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Jason Day (Aus, -14): ‘I’ve been working very hard to try and accomplish my first major, and you know, it’s a little frustrating with how it finished.
