Zac Blair is well placed to land his first-ever PGA Tour title after a six-under round of 64 gave him a share of the lead with Brandt Snedeker at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
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Snedeker, in pursuit of his eighth victory on the PGA Tour, was delighted to be at the top of the leaderboard after tying for third at last week’s Hyundai Tournament of Champions following missed cuts in his two previous starts. “I was thinking I could hit a cut shot and hold it up against the wind, and it did not cut, obviously”.
“It felt really awkward and uncomfortable, and I thought there would be some growing pains with it, some kind of foul balls here and there that just kind of come when you make a swing change”, he said.
“To go out and play the way I did on Sunday at the RSM with a three-shot lead was a huge confidence builder”, Kisner said. He concluded with a four-footer for birdie-4 at the 18th and after 54 holes, leads the field in driving accuracy at 85.71 percent (36/42), including 12 (of 14) on Saturday.
The 2-foot putt that he pulled on the 18th hole cost him the lead, though one stroke means nothing on a course like Waialae. “Even-par or one-under par is not going to get it done”.
The Open champion Zach Johnson (66) and the resurgent Luke Donald (65) were among those two shots behind, while the group three strokes back included Sean O’Hair and 49-year-old Jerry Kelly.
“I feel like I’m playing great, so it should be fun”, Snedeker said about the weekend at Waialae. Five players who were at Kapalua last week missed the cut – Russell Knox, Justin Thomas, Chris Kirk, Graeme McDowell and Troy Merritt. Fred Funk, who turns 60 this year, birdied his final hole to make it on the number. Robert Allenby missed the cut by four shots in his return to Honolulu.
Clarke, who is also the current European Ryder Cup captain, could not have been more delighted with team lynchpins Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, who again won both their matches against Asian Tour rivals.
Bernd Wiesberger and Ross Fisher beat K.T. Kim and Wang Jeunghun 2 up, Shane Lowry and Andy Sullivan edged Prayad Marksaeng and Shingo Katayama 3 and 2, and Soren Kjeldsen and Victor Dubuisson halved with Danny Chia and Nicholas Fung.
The competition will end today with 12 singles matches.
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England’s Wall and South Africans Zander Lombard and Haydn Porteous were on 15-under-par 200 after three rounds inJohannesburg, South Africa.
