Blixt-Smith tandem widens lead
TEAM NOT FLUSTERED BY WINDS AT ZURICH CLASSIC
Jonas Blixt of Sweden and Cameron Smith of Australia apparently are enjoying playing as teammates too much to be unsettled by wind gusts reaching 36 miles per hour.
The pair extended their bogey-free run to three rounds in the new team format at the Zurich Classic, deftly adjusting to winds that unsettled many other PGA Tour pros and posting a 4under 68 Saturday to widen their lead to four strokes.
“It’s like going back to playing as a kid,” the 33-yearold Blixt said. “I don’t feel like there’s any stress at all out there.”
Alternating shots on Saturday, as teams did in the first round, the Blixt-Cameron partnership posted four birdies to improve to 19under, building on a lead that stood at one shot through two rounds. They are the only team without a bogey.
“Feels like back in the amateur days,” Smith said of playing in the first team event held on the PGA Tour since 1981, about 12 years before he was born. “It’s just nice to go out there and relax and have some fun.”
The Kevin Kisner-Scott Brown and Nick Watney-Charley Hoffman teams were tied for second. Also in contention are Jordan Spieth and Ryan Palmer, five shots behind — although they could have been several shots closer if not for some uncharacteristic misses of short putts by both players.
Spieth missed a 3-footer for birdie on the par-5 18th, wasting Palmer’s wellexecuted 86-yard approach shot. Throughout the round, Spieth was among players backing away from shots when they sensed a gust building and said the wind affected putting “significantly.”
“When you get a putt where the wind is blowing one way and you’ve got the grain the other, and the hill back with the wind, you just have no idea what that putt is going to do,” Spieth said. “If it gusts or doesn’t gust when you’re over it, it affects the putt by an entire cup, even from six or seven feet. ”
So expect more guessing in the final round, which will start earlier than planned — at 6:40 a.m. — because of rain in the forecast. The format will return to “best ball,” as in the second round, with each two-man team taking the best score of either player per hole.
Palmer narrowly missed par putts from within three feet on the second and 13th holes.