Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Cook shoots 64 to lead CareerBuilder
LA QUINTA, Calif. — Austin Cook played a six-hole stretch in 6 under and shot an 8-under 64 in breezy conditions Saturday to take the lead at the CareerBuilder Challenge.
Cook began the run at La Quinta Country Club with birdies on Nos. 4-5, eagled the sixth and added birdies on No. 7 and 9 to make the turn in 6-under 30.
After a bogey on the 10th, he birdied Nos. 11, 12 and 15 and saved par on the 18th with a 20-footer to take a 19-under 197 total into the final round on PGA West’s Stadium Course. The 26-year-old former Arkansas player is making his first start in the event. He won at Sea Island in November for his first PGA Tour title.
Fellow former Razorbacks star Andrew Landry and Martin Piller were a stroke back. Landry, the second-round leader, had a 70 on the Stadium Course. Piller, the husband of LPGA Tour player Gerina Piller, shot a 67 at La Quinta. They are both winless on the PGA Tour.
Jon Rahm had a 70 at the Stadium Course to reach 17 under. The top-ranked player in the field at No. 3, Rahm beat up the par 5s again, but had four bogeys — three on par 3s. He has played the 12 par 5s in 13 under with an eagle and 11 birdies.
Scott Piercy also was two strokes back after a 66 at the Stadium.
Adam Hadwin had a 67 at La Quinta a year after shooting a third-round 59 on the course. The Canadian was 16 under along with Grayson Murray and Brandon Harkins. Murray had a 67 on PGA West’s Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course, and Harkins shot 68 on the Stadium Course.
Phil Mickelson missed the cut in his first tournament of the year for the second time in his career, shooting a 74 on the Stadium Course to finish at 4 under — four strokes from a Sunday tee time.
The 47-year-old Hall of Famer was playing for the first time since late October. He also missed the cut in the Phoenix Open in his 2009 opener.
Charlie Reiter, the Palm Desert High School senior playing on the first sponsor exemption the event has given to an amateur, also Scores, 9C missed the cut. The Southern California recruit had three early straight double bogeys in a 77 on the Stadium that left him 1 over for the week.
John Daly had an 80 at La Quinta. He opened with a triple bogey and had six bogeys — four in a row to start his second nine — and only one birdie. The 51-year-old Daly opened with a 69 on the Nicklaus layout and had a 71 on Friday at the Stadium. Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship: Rory McIlroy fired a 7-under 65 in the third round in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to sit one shot behind leaders Ross Fisher and Thomas Pieters.
Northern Ireland’s McIlroy is on 16-under 200 overall with the former world No. 1 playing his first event since October.
England’s Fisher also shot a 65, while overnight leader Pieters added a 67 to reach 17-under 199 on a low-scoring day in the absence of any wind at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club’s National Course. Singapore Open: Danthai Boonma and Chapchai Nirat built a two-stroke lead over a chasing pack including Sergio Garcia and Ryo Ishikawa, their closest rivals, midway through the third round of the weather-interrupted Singapore Open in Singapore.
The Thai golfers were locked together at 9-under when play was suspended at the Sentosa Golf Club for the third day in a row because of lightning strikes in the area.
Masters champion Garcia and former teen prodigy Ishikawa were among seven players leading the chase at 7-under on a heavily congested leaderboard.
Garcia, one of 78 players who returned to the course just after dawn to complete their second rounds, was on the 10th hole of his third round when the warning siren was sounded to abruptly end play for the day.
“Let’s see if we can finish the round, that will be nice,” he said. “But I think if I can play 4-under I should have a chance.”
The Spanish golfer credits the Singapore Open as having played a part in toughening him up for his first major championship title at Augusta National because of the stifling humidity of southeast Asia and the testing stop-start nature of the tournament.
Although he finished tied for 11th in Singapore, Garcia won the Dubai Desert Classic the subsequent week and was in peak form when he won the Masters two months later. He is feeling confident of his chances of success this weekend.
“I felt like I hit the ball OK,” Garcia said. “My putting and all went great, but my speed hasn’t been great on this green, so let’s see if I can be a little more aggressive on the rounds this weekend.”
Ishikawa moved into a share of the lead at the halfway stage after firing a second round of 5-under 66 that featured eight birdies. He birdied the first two holes of his third round to grab the outright lead, but slipped back with a double-bogey at the tricky third hole for the third day in a row. Latin America Amateur: Defending champion Toto Gana opened with a 3-under 68 in his home country and shared the lead after the opening round of the Latin America Amateur Championship in Santiago, Chile.
Gana, the 20-year-old from Chile who attends Lynn University in Boca Raton, won last year in Panama City to earn a spot in the Masters.
He made six birdies against three bogeys at Prince of Wales Country Club and was tied with Pablo Torres of Colombia and Mark Montenegro of Argentina. Montenegro led most of the opening round until dropping three shots over his final four holes.
Among those one shot behind was Alvaro Ortiz, who lost in the three-man playoff a year ago.
Joaquin Niemann of Chile, the No. 1 amateur in the world, opened with a 74. LATE FRIDAY: PGA Tour Champions: Colin Montgomerie shot a second straight 7-under 65 to take a two-shot lead into the final round of the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, the season opener on the PGA Tour Champions in KailuaKona, Hawaii.
The 54-year-old Scot, a six-time winner on the over-50 tour, didn’t miss a fairway on Friday and made five birdies on the back nine to reach 14 under at Hualalai.
Montgomerie has made 17 birdies through 36 holes and said he will have to continue cashing in on his opportunities.
First-round co-leaders Gene Sauers and Jerry Kelly each shot 68 and were 12 under.
David Toms was three shots back after a 66. Woody Austin, Mark Calcavecchia and Doug Garwood each shot 67 and were another shot behind.
Bernhard Langer, defending the first of his seven 2017 titles, was six shots back after a 67.
The limited-field tournament on Hawaii’s Big Island includes last season’s winners, past champions of the event, major champions and Hall of Famers.