A STORMING FINISH
ENGLAND’s Paul Waring holds a share of the lead going into the final round of the Joburg Open after continued poor weather in South Africa saw the tournament reduced to 54 holes.
Delays had already left the event behind schedule and although the second round was completed yesterday, thunderstorms and heavy rain flooded the Royal Johannesburg & Kensington course before anybody could complete their third round, with the top 15 on the leaderboard all still to tee off.
That forced officials to reduce the event to 54 holes, with tournament director David Williams telling the European Tour website: ‘The course is now completely waterlogged. We’re going to restart round three – which will also now be the final round – at 07.00 tomorrow morning.
‘The forecast for tomorrow is pretty good. I think we’ll just have to wait and see how much damage is done today because at the moment it’s coming down very hard and obviously it’s coming down onto an already saturated course so we’ll just keep our fingers crossed that we have a reasonably good evening, that we can restart tomorrow and get finished over three rounds.’
Waring held a oneshot lead overnight but played the closing holes of his second round in one over par after a bogey on the 18th.
The 32-year-old, who is looking for his first European Tour victory after several years ravaged by injury, sits on 11 under par alongside South Africa’s Darren Fichardt, who did not hit a shot yesterday having completed his second round on Friday.
South African pair Dean Burmester and Jacques Kruyswijk are tied for third on 10 under.
Meanwhile, Graeme McDowell had a topsy-turvy third round yesterday at The Honda Classic in Palm Beach, Florida.
A two-under-par round of 68 barely begins to tell the story of an effort that started excellently with birdies at the third and fourth.
McDowell was well inside the top 20 at that stage, but it all went wrong at the sixth, when he found water with his second shot at the par four and could only manage a double-bogey six, which he followed immediately with a bogey on seven.
Another shot was lost on the 10th but it was all good after that. A birdie on 12 kick-started his back nine and he birdied each of the last three holes to finish three under overall after his 68.
That was four shots off the early clubhouse leaders, Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo and American Sean O’Hair and had McDowell around 30th.
Up front, though, Rickie Fowler was the man to catch and he was at 11 under after 12 holes, one ahead of the ever-improving young Englishman Tyrrell Hatton.