Thomas leads after hole in one
Justin Thomas made a hole in one and surged into the lead with a five-under 66 on a Saturday of high entertainment in the Mexico Championship.
Thomas hit a six-iron from 239 yards that onehopped into the cup on the par-three 13th. He added a pair of birdies that gave him a one-shot lead over
Dustin Johnson, with Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy right behind. Such a world-class leaderboard should have been enough to delight the crowd at Chapultepec Golf Club. There was so much more. Johnson, in his debut at No. 1 in the world, was tied for the lead when his second shot on the 16th got stuck in a tree. He walked back to the original spot and hit the next one to 15 feet, and the ball fell out of the tree as he was walking to the green. He made the putt to salvage a bogey and shot 66.
Mickelson didn’t hit a fairway on the back nine until the 16th hole and at one point took as many drops as he had birdies. Even so, Lefty managed to make three straight birdies until closing with a bogey for a wild round of 68.
He was two shots behind, along with McIlroy, who didn’t make a birdie over his last seven holes and shot 70.
At nearly 7,800 feet of elevation, the final round figures to be up in the thin air. That might even include Jordan Spieth, who set the course record with an eight-under 63 and was among a dozen players within five shots of the lead.
Michelle Wie shot a five-under 67 to lead the HSBC Women’s Champions tournament by two strokes after the third round at Singapore.
The American followed up her previous rounds of 66 and 69 to reach 14-under 202 and lead an LPGA event after 54 holes for the first time since she won the 2014 U.S. Open.
Top-ranked Lydia Ko birdied the last hole for a 67 to end the day in a three-way tie for second. She was joined by last year’s British Open champion Ariya
Jutanugarn (69) and the big-hitting Park SungHyun (68). Rio Olympic gold medalist Inbee Park shot a 71 to finish three shots behind Wie and tied with the defending champion Ha Na Jang (68).