Joburg washout sees England’s Waring left in a tie for the lead
ENGLAND’S Paul Waring holds a share of the lead going into today’s final round of the Joburg Open after continued poor weather in South Africa saw the tourney reduced to 54 holes.
Delays had already left the event behind schedule, and although the second round was completed yesterday morning, 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 saying: “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 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 one-shot lead overnight but played the closing holes of his second round in oneover-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 on Saturday having completed his second round on Friday.
South African pair Dean Burmester and Jacques Kruyswijk are tied for third on 10-under.
The leading Scot is David Dysdale at eight under.
WITHOUT a win in more than a year, Rickie Fowler last night secured a four-shot lead going into today’s final round of the Honda Classic at Florida’s Palm Beach Gardens.
Fowler made two birdies on the last three holes at PGA National for a five-under 65 as everyone around him was struggling to finish.
This took the American Ryder Cup star to a 13-under-par 54-hole total of 197, four shots ahead of England’s Tyrrell Hatton, after he fired a four-under round of 66 to climb the leaderboard.
It was the third straight week that someone has built a big lead on the PGA TOUR after 54 holes. Jordan Spieth was six shots clear at Pebble Beach, while Dustin Johnson was up by five shots at Riviera last weekend.
Fowler’s last victory was in Abu Dhabi a year ago January. He hasn’t won on the PGA TOUR since the Deutsche Bank Championship on Labor Day in 2015.