Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Peterson stays patient, shares Chiquita Classic lead
DAVIDSON, N.C. — John Peterson and Andrew Svoboda shared the third-round lead Saturday in the Chiquita Classic, the second tournament in the four-event Web.com Tour Finals series.
The bulk of the field is made up of players in the top 75 on the Web.com Tour money list and Nos. 126-200 in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings. The top 25 on the Web.com money list are assured PGA Tour cards, while the other players are fighting for 25 additional cards through earnings in the four-event series.
Svoboda has already wrapped up a PGA Tour card by finishing 25th on the Web.com money list. Peterson was 30th on the Web.com money list.
Peterson had five backnine birdies to shoot 5-under 67 to match Svoboda at 10-under 206 at River Run.
“I just stayed out there and my caddie told me just to stay patient,” Peterson, the 2011 NCAA champion at LSU. “I don’t usually do a good job of that but I did it today and it came around for me on the back.
“I was hitting good shots on the front and a bunch were in that 10- to 12-foot range. I kept hitting it close and finally hit it close enough where it was hard to miss. I can make it from 3 feet, I just couldn’t make it from 10 feet today.”
Svoboda birdied the final two holes for a 69.
The former St. John’s player won the Web.com Tour’s Price Cutter Charity Championship last month.
“Anywhere around the lead is nice,” Svoboda said. “It was really nice to finish with those two birdies.”
He made a 20-foot putt on the par-3 17th hole and an 18-footer after laying up on the par-5 18th.
“It was between a 3-wood and a hybrid for me,” Svoboda said. “I had 240 to the hole and hitting a 3-wood off a downhill lie just wasn’t good for me. I wasn’t sure I could get that one up in the air off that lie.”
Two-time PGA Tour winner Troy Matteson, Peter Malnati and Greg Owen were a stroke back. Matteson shot 67, Malnati 69, and Owen 71.
Scott Gardiner (Farmington) shot a 3- under 69 on Saturday and is at 3-under 213 for the tournament. He is tied for 28th place. Gardiner had three birdies and no bogeys on Saturday.
WALKER CUP
U.S. takes 8-4 lead
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — NCAA champion Max Homa beat Max Orrin 5 and 3 and the United States won the first six singles matches Saturday in the Walker Cup to take an 8-4 lead over Britain and Ireland at historic National Golf Links of America.
Homa, coming off his senior season at California, won the par-4 14th with a par and finished off the Englishman with a birdie on the par-4 15th.
The biennial event, first played in 1922 at National Golf Links, will close today with four morning foursomes matches and 10 afternoon singles matches.
Alabama teammates Bobby Wyatt and Cory Whitsett, California players Michael Kim and Michael Weaver and Oklahoma State’s Jordan Niebrugge teamed with Homa to sweep the first six singles matches, and Alabama’s Justin Thomas earned a halve in the seventh.
Wyatt beat England’s Neil Raymond 2 up, Kim edged England’s Callum Shinkwin 2 and 1, Whitsett topped England’s Jordan Smith 1 up, Niebrugge, who won last month’s Western Amateur championship at The Alotian Club in Roland, beat England’s Garrick Porteous 1 up, and Weaver topped U.S. Amateur champion Matthew Fitzpatrick, also from England, 3 and 1.
Thomas halved with England’s Nathan Kimsey, and Ireland’s Gavin Moynihan beat Stanford’s Patrick Rodgers, who was the medalist at the Western Amateur, 2 and 1 in the final match.
Britain and Ireland led 2½-1½ after the four morning foursomes matches.
EUROPEAN TOUR
Scotland’s Lee shoots 61
CRANS- SUR- SIERRE, Switzerland — Craig Lee of Scotland shot a 10-under 61 to surge into a two-shot lead after the third round of the European Masters on Saturday.
Lee birdied the first six holes, and had 11 birdies overall, to equal the lowest round in a European Tour event this year. The 348th-ranked Lee was 16-under 197.
Thomas Bjorn, the 2011 champion from Denmark, Alejandro Canizares of Spain and Victor Dubuisson of France were tied for second.
Lee, who has never won a European Tour event, said it was “comfortably my best round ever.”
“It was surreal to see all these great golf shots go down on the same day,” said the Scot, who birdied nine of the first 10 holes and briefly threatened to shoot the first 59 on the European circuit.
Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain, the 2010 champion, and Tommy Fleetwood of England both shot 69 to sit five shots behind Lee in a tie for fifth place.
On another day of low scoring in the Swiss Alps’ thin air and sunshine, Ross Fisher of England shot 63 to be 10 under, six behind Lee. Fisher was joined by American Brooks Koepka, who went around in 69.
CHAMPIONS TOUR
Langer leads by 3 strokes
SAINTE-JULIE, Quebec — Bernhard Langer shot a 5-under 67 to open a three-stroke lead in the Champions Tour’s Montreal Championship.
Langer had five birdies in a bogey-free second round to reach 6 under on La Vallee du Richelieu’s Rouville Course. The two-time Masters champion has two victories this year and 18 overall on the 50-and-older tour.
Kenny Perry, the Senior Players Championship and U.S. Senior Open winner in consecutive tour starts this summer, was 3 under along with Willie Wood, Chien Soon Lu, Bill Glasson and Anders Forsbrand. Perry had a 71, Wood and Lu shot 68, and Glasson and Forsbrand shot 69.