San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SCHENK’S LATE BIRDIE KEEPS LEAD
Adam Schenk looked as though he and everyone else would get passed by Jordan Spieth on Saturday at the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Fla. When a wild and windy round finished, Schenk was still the player everyone was chasing.
Schenk hit his approach to the 18th hole to 5 feet and made the birdie putt for a 1under 70, giving him a oneshot lead over Spieth and Tommy Fleetwood as he goes after his first victory on the PGA Tour.
“We didn’t have a ton go our way until the very end,” Schenk said.
Neither did Fleetwood, who opened with a birdie and followed with 12 straight pars. He wound up with a bogey-free 69 and realized not losing ground was one of the best things he had going on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook.
Spieth, however, is who dictated the action.
He had a 69 and had to decide when it was over whether that was a good score on account of all the mistakes he made or a wasted chance to separate himself from the field. Spieth opened with a 6-iron to 7 feet for eagle. He led by as many as two shots. But he made only three pars over his final 12 holes — on four of those occasions, he followed a bogey with a birdie. But that ended on the 18th when he hit a tree on his drive, went into a front bunker and then blasted by the pin to the collar for a final bogey.
“I didn’t have my best stuff in the approach game, but overall I’m in a good spot for (today),” Spieth said.
Schenk was at 8-under 205 and will play in the final group with Spieth, whose game appears to be rounding into form with the Masters on the horizon.
Schenk is playing his 10th week in a row because his wife, Courtney, is expecting their first child at the end of April. He also is entered in the field next week in the Dominican Republic, though a victory could change everything.
That feels a long way off. Eight players were within three shots of the lead. Webb Simpson had a 68 that included a bogey on the par-5 14th when he hit into the water while trying to lay up. He was two shots behind, along with Taylor Moore (69) and Cody Gribble (70), who had short birdie putts on the 16th and 17th hole and narrowly missed a 20-footer in his bid to birdie all three holes as part of the “Snake Pit” on the Copperhead course. Patton Kizzire had a 67 and posted early, not sure where that would leave him.
Spieth had a lot to do with that and he wound up keeping everyone close.
“Eventful,” is how Spieth described his round.
He missed a 5-foot par putt on No. 7. He hit 6-iron to 12 feet for birdie on No. 8. He missed a 7-foot par putt on the 10th, and then hit a bunker shot that landed in the collar and bounced out to 3 feet for birdie on the par-5 11th.
Spieth followed a threeputt bogey on the 13th with a 3-wood to 35 feet for a twoputt birdie on the 14th. It was like that throughout the back nine, and Spieth looked to have settled down with a 10-foot par putt on the 17th, only to send his tee shot into the trees on 18.
“I made a few too many mistakes, but overall in these conditions, I think I would have signed for 2 under,” Spieth said.
Elsewhere
Bernhard Langer remained in position at the Hoag Classic in Newport Beach to break a tie with Hale Ir win for the PGA Tour Champions victory record.
Langer played the final five holes in 5 under — going birdie-eagle-par-birdiebirdie — for a 5-under 66 and one-stroke lead with a round left. The 65-year-old German star tied Irwin at 45 victories a month ago in the Chubb Classic in Florida.
• Marc Leishman opened with an eagle and held it together in the middle of his round for a 5-under 66, giving him a two-shot lead over Sergio Garcia going into the third and final round of LIV Golf Tucson.
San Diego’s Phil Mickelson had a bogey-free round, making four birdies in an eight-hole stretch that led to a 67. He was tied for 10th, six shots out of the lead. His team was one shot behind Garcia’s team.
• Kristian Krogh Johannessen and Matthew Baldwin shared the lead at the SDC Championship in South Africa when the third round was suspended because of fading light.