FOCUS ON Stone has his eye on adding a second home title success
HOME favourite Brandon Stone remained on course to securing his second European Tour title last night.
Stone will take a three-shot lead into today’s final round of the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek after posting a second successive 66 yesterday.
Stone, the leader at the halfway mark, began the day one stroke ahead of the chasing pack but carded seven birdies and a single bogey in his third round to get to 17-under-par and extend his advantage.
Fellow South Africans Keith Horne and Charl Schwartzel and Englishman Chris Hanson were in a share of second place on 14under.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s David Drysdale produced a flawless 64 – the lowest round of the day – to jump up to sixth on the leaderboard.
Stone made the perfect start to his third round, rolling in his close-range birdie putt at the first before pulling off two important par saves at the second and third holes.
Following a stunning approach shot at the fourth, Stone converted his six-foot birdie putt to get to 13-under before making another gain at the fifth.
The 23 year old then made it three in a row with a birdie at the sixth before safely parring the seventh, eighth and ninth holes.
Stone started the back nine with backto-back birdies at the 10th and 11th before dropping his only shot of the day at the 12th.
But the 2016 BMW SA Open champion bounced straight back, picking up a shot at the 13th to return to 17-under.
And after making another sensational par save from 25 feet at the short 16th, Stone closed his third round with pars at the final two holes.
Despite being in possession of a healthy lead, Stone knows it will not be easy to seal victory with Saturday’s playing partner Schwartzel – a four-time winner of this event – in the chasing pack.
He said: “Charl is always good fun to play with – I really admire him. I really admire the way that he plays golf.
“I think he obviously likes this place and he obviously plays well here so I’m under no illusion. He’s going to come and fire and try to keep that trophy to himself.
“I played some good golf the whole day. I holed some putts, hit some good shots, got a really, really lucky break on the last there but all of those missed putts for the last three days just cashed in there.”
Defending champion Schwartzel carded six birdies – including four in a row at the start of his back nine – and two bogeys in his third-round 68.
He said: “I need to put myself in play more on the front nine. My putting is really beautiful and I just need to give myself more opportunities and I’m not doing that on the front nine.
“Hopefully tomorrow I can just play a little better from the beginning.”
After mixing six birdies with four bogeys in his first 16 holes, Hanson finished his round with birdies at the 17th and 18th to get within three shots of the lead, while Horne notched four birdies on his back nine as he signed for a 67.