Johnson overcomes tree trouble for lead
Dustin Johnson watched a six-shot lead shrink to two before putting together enough birdies Saturday for a 5-under 66 and a four-shot lead over
Rory McIlroy going into the final round of the Mexico Championship.
Johnson nearly threw away his six-shot lead through eight holes when McIlroy made a 35-foot birdie putt on No. 9, and then Johnson ran into some serious tree trouble on the 10th hole. He hit trees with three consecutive shots and had to two-putt from across the green to salvage a double bogey.
It was his first score worse than par at Chapultepec Golf Club this week.
And it was his last of the day.
“I didn’t let it bother me because I knew I was playing well and there were plenty of holes I could make birdie,” Johnson said.
Johnson answered with two straight birdies, sandwiched two birdies around a big par save, and restored a cushion going into Sunday. McIlroy got no closer than two shots all day and had to settle for a 68.
No one else was closer than seven shots of the lead.
Tiger Woods pulled within four shots after Johnson’s blunder, but poor putting left him 10 shots off the lead, tied for ninth.
OLE MISS PLAYERS KNEEL AGAINST RALLY
Eight Mississippi players kneeled during the national anthem in response to a Confederacy rally near the arena before the Rebels’ 72-71 victory over Georgia on Saturday.
With the teams lined up across the court at the free throw lines, six players took a knee and bowed at the start of the “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Two other players later joined them.
“The majority of it was just that we saw one of our teammates doing it and didn’t want him to be alone,” Ole Miss scoring leader Breein Tyree said. “We’re just tired of these hate groups coming to our school and portraying our campus like we have these hate groups in our actual school.”
The Confederacy demonstration took place a few hundred feet from the arena. In the aftermath of violence at a similar rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Oxford community has been on alert.
NO BALKING FROM KYLER
Kyler Murray double downed on his commitment to the NFL during a news conference Saturday.
“I mean, they [The Athletics] can hold out all the hope they want to,” Murray said. “I’m going to play football.”
Despite signing a contract with the A’s, who drafted him ninth overall in the 2018 draft, The Heisman winning quarterback Murray decided earlier this winter he’d pursue the gridiron over the diamond.