‘Birdie-fest’ jammed at top

Three share lead; McCarron looks to defend crown

HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — One big push down the stretch vaulted Scott McCarron to the top of a crowded leader board and put him in position to capture his second consecutive Constellation Senior Players Championship.

If he does, he will join Arnold Palmer and Bernhard Langer as the only back-toback winners of this PGA Tour Champions major.

McCarron and Bart Bryant shot matching 65s Saturday to move into a share of the lead with Jeff Maggert.

McCarron birdied two of the final four holes at Exmoor Country Club for a three-round total of 16-under 200. A year ago, he rallied to win the event at Caves Valley near Baltimore.

Maggert, who led most of the day, shot 66.

Vijay Singh (66) was one shot back. Three-time champion Langer (67) and Illinois golf coach Mike Small (66) were another stroke behind, and Scott Parel (70) was in a group at 13 under.

McCarron came into the week with seven top-10 finishes this year and a win at the American Family Insurance Championship in June.

“The only way to repeat is you’ve got to put yourself in position going into the final round, which I’ve done,” he said. “[Sunday] will be very exciting. We’ve got a stacked leader board, and someone is going to have to go pretty low ... to win this tournament.”

McCarron opened with a birdie on the par-5 first hole and finished with eight birdies and one bogey on a rainy afternoon. He came on strong on the back nine, making three consecutive birdies starting with the par4 10th. He added two more on the par-5 15th and par-4 17th while also limiting his mistakes.

“I hit the ball very well,” he said. “I hit a lot of fairways, hit a lot of greens.”

Maggert came in anticipating a “birdie-fest” because of the soggy conditions and got off to a blistering start.

He opened with an eagle after his approach rolled to about 3 feet. With birdies on the par-4 second and fourth holes, he looked like he might build a big lead.

But he made just three birdies the rest of the way before a bogey at 16 dropped him into a tie for the lead.

“I felt like I needed to make six, seven or eight birdies today to keep pace with the leader board,” Maggert said. “It kind of turned out that way. Not only was I making a lot of birdies, there was 10 or 12 other guys making birdies, too.”