Spieth looking to match Jack
Leads Kuchar by three; Grace becomes first to shoot 62 in major
Associated Press
SOUTHPORT, England — Jordan Spieth is one round away from the third leg of the career Grand Slam — and one year removed from a reminder that it won’t be easy.
On the horizon is a chance to join Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win three different majors before turning 24. In the past was his last time leading a major, when he let a five- shot lead get away from him on the back nine at the 2016 Masters.
On Saturday, though, all that mattered to him was the present.
Spieth did his part on an extraordinary day of scoring in the British Open, capping off his 5- underpar 65 by making a 20- foot birdie putt on the 18th hole for a threeshot lead over Matt Kuchar, who did his best to keep pace with a 4- under 66.
Spieth had one of seven rounds of 65 or lower at vulnerable Royal Birkdale. He was warming up on the range when Branden Grace shot an 8- under 62, the lowest 18- hole score in 157 years of major championships. Spieth then delivered his second bogey- free round of the week.
‘‘ Pretty stress- free,’’ Spieth said. ‘‘ On a Saturday with a lead in a major, that’s as good as I can ask for.’’
He was at 11- under 199, breaking by six shots the 54- hole record at Royal Birkdale that Tom Watson set in 1983. And not only did that last birdie give him a three- shot lead over Kuchar, but no one else was closer than six shots.
This will be Spieth’s third time taking the lead into the final round of a major. He led by four at the Masters in 2015 and won by that margin. More recently, he held a one- shot lead at Augusta National to start the final round in 2016 and turned that into a five- shot lead at the turn before a quadruple- bogey on the 12th hole cost him another green jacket.
Spieth was embracing both memories.
‘‘ I think I’m in a position where it can be very advantageous, just everything I’ve gone through — the good, the bad and everything in the middle,’’ he said. ‘‘ I understand that leads can be squandered quickly, and I also understand how you can keep on rolling on one.’’
Kuchar never quite caught up to Spieth. He twice made birdies that momentarily tied him for the lead, only for Spieth to sink birdie putts on top of him to stay in front. His one slip was a drive into a pot bunker on the 16th and a three- putt that led to a double bogey.
Kuchar, 39, will be playing in the final group of the final round at a major for the first time, and he sounded up for the occasion.
‘‘ We certainly had a great round of golf,’’ Kuchar said. ‘‘ I never felt like I was out there trying to beat Jordan. It’s trying to go up against Royal Birkdale and put on the best show you can against the golf course.’’
No one put on a show quite like Grace, who had a chance to win the U. S. Open two years ago at Chambers Bay. He went out in 29, then added two long birdie putts on the 14th and 16th and a two- putt birdie on the 17th to reach 8 under. From 60 feet behind the 18th green, he lagged a putt to 2 feet and tapped in for a 62.
‘‘ I had no idea that a 62 was the lowest [ round] ever [ in a major],’’ said Grace, who was still seven strokes behind Spieth at the end of the day. “Now it makes it even more special than what it was.’’