Round 3 Notes – Mercedes-Benz Championship
Third-Round Notes – Saturday, January 5, 2008Weather: Partly sunny skies with a high temperature of 77 degrees. Winds E/NE at 15-25 mph.
Second-round leader Mike Weir fired a round of 68 on Saturday in the PGA TOUR’s Mercedes-Benz Championship and now takes a one-shot lead over Nick Watney into Sunday’s final round
The good news for Weir is that four of the last five 54-hole leaders at the Mercedes-Benz Championship have gone on to win the next day. The bad news for Weir: Phil Mickelson is the only left-handed player in the tournament’s illustrious history to have claimed the title.
Since Weir’s impressive singles win over Tiger Woods at last year’s Presidents Cup, he has carded 11 consecutive rounds under par in a stretch that included a T10 finish at the Frys.com Open and a win at the Fry’s Electronics Open.
This marks the ninth 54-hole lead/co-lead of Mike Weir’s PGA TOUR career:
Year Event Scores Finish
2006 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am 63-67-69-78—277 T3
2004 Bell Canadian Open 68-65-70-72—275 2nd
2004 Nissan Open 66-64-66-71—267 Won
2002 Honda Classic 68-65-67-75—275 T11
2001 Genuity Championship 62-70-69-71—272 2nd
1999 Michelob Championship 74-63-68-70—275 3rd
1999 PGA Championship 68-68-69-80—285 T10
1999 BellSouth Classic 69-65-68-72—274 T5
If Nick Watney’s putter heats up on Sunday he could be tough to beat. The 2007 Zurich Classic of New Orleans champion is leading the field in Greens in Regulation (92.6 percent) and is T5 Driving Accuracy (86.7 percent).
2001 Mercedes-Benz Championship winner Jim Furyk carded the round of the day with a 66. Furyk, who owns a house at Kapalua, has seven top-10 finishes in 10 appearances in the Mercedes-Benz Championship.
Through 31 holes this week, 2007 Comeback Player of the Year Steve Stricker found himself at even par for the tournament before going on a 23-hole tear in which he carded 10 birdies against a lone bogey to vault up the leaderboard.
Scoring Averages:
Front 9 Back 9 Total
Thursday 35.792 36.968 73.645
Friday 34.645 36.000 70.645
Saturday 35.000 34.742 69.742
For the third day in a row, a par-3 played as the most difficult hole at Kapalua’s Plantation Course. The par-3 eighth claimed it’s second honor of the week with a third-round average of 3.065.
Boo Weekley, K.J. Choi, and Paul Goydos each entered the third round tied for 29th position. The threesome carded rounds of 68, 69, and 67, respectively, but were only able to improve their position by a few spots. In fact, Choi actually lost ground with his round of 69 by falling back into 30th.
Thirty of the thirty-one players in the field managed to card rounds of par or better in perfect conditions on Saturday at Kapalua. Joe Ogilvie (74) was the only player in the field to post a round over par.
Rory Sabbatini and Vijay Singh were the only players in the field to hit 18 of 18 Greens in Regulation on Saturday.
The Plantation Course at Kapalua has always seemed to favor the longer hitters and this week is no different. Through three rounds, four players in the top five in Driving Distance are also in the top 10 on the leaderboard: Nick Watney, Daniel Chopra, Vijay Singh, and Angel Cabrera.
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