Fowler leads at Rocket Mortgage Classic
DETROIT – Rickie Fowler birdied six of his last eight holes Saturday to surge into the Rocket Mortgage Classic lead at 20 under, giving him anotherachance to end a four-year PGA Tour victory drought.
Fowler had an 8-under 64 to take a one-stroke lead over Adam Hdwin at Detroit Golf Club. Two weeks ago in Los Angeles in the U.S. Open, Fowler squandered a chance with a closing 75 in a fifth-place tie.
Hadwin had a 63 to tie the tournament record. Fellow Canadian Taylor Pendrith was third at 18 under after a 67. Pendrith bogeyed two of his last four holes.
Monday qualifier Peter Kuest (65) and Aaron Rai (68) were 17 under. Taylor Moore (69) was another stroke back with four other players, including Collin Morikawa, who shot a 67 for the second straight day.
Play was suspended for 1 hour, 42 minutes because of lightning in the area and the schedule for the final round was adjusted in the hopes of completing the final round with inclement weather in the forecast.
The leaders will tee off Sunday morning just before 9 a.m.and threesomes will start on both the front and back nine.
LIV Golf League
SOTOGRANDE, Spain – Bryson DeChambeau made eagle on his final hole at the par-5 17th for an 8-under 63 and a one-shot lead over Talor Gooch on Saturday in LIV Golf-Valderrama.
DeChambeau has yet to win against the 48-man fields on the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League, and this might be his best chance. He played bogey-free for the day, and his eagle allowed him to move into the lead going into the third and final round.
Gooch, who won back-to-back LIV Golf events in Australia and Singapore earlier this year, had the lead for much of the second round at Valderrama, with eight birdies against one bogey. But then he took a second bogey on the 18th hole and finished with a par for a 65.
PGA champion Brooks Koepka, who already has two LIV Golf wins along with Gooch and Dustin Johnson, got his lone mistake out of the way early and shot 65. He was three shots behind DeChambeau.
Johnson shared the opening-round lead but could only manage a 71, leaving him five back. Jason Kokrak was a late arrival due to travel from Ohio and was tied for the 18-hole lead with Johnson. He shot 74 and fell eight shots behind.
Among those at 1-under 141 was Sergio Garcia, who knows Valderrama as well as anyone. He had to settle for a 71 and was well back in his bid for a first LIV victory.
PGA Tour Champions
STEVENS POINT, Wis. – Bernhard Langer took a two-stroke lead Saturday in the U.S. Senior Open at difficult SentryWorld in the 65-year-old German star’s bid to break the PGA Tour Champions’ career victory record.
Fan favorites Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly –both from Madison, 100 miles to the south – were right behind, with Retief Goosen and Y.E. Yang the only other players under par with a round left on the punishing tree-lined course with thick rough and tricky greens.
Langer shot his second straight 3-under 68 to reach 6 under. The 2010 U.S. Senior Open winner, Langer won the Chubb Classic in Florida in February to tie Hale Irwin for the Champions’ career victory record of 45.
Allen Doyle is the oldest winner in event history, taking the 2006 title at SentryWorld at 57 years, 11 months, 14 days.
Langer will play alongside Kelly on Sunday.
Kelly and Stricker, paired together Saturday, closed with birdies on the par-4 18th, with Kelly making a 20-foot putt from the fringe and Stricker following with a 15-footer. They each shot 68, with Kelly second at 4 under and Sticker third at 3 under.
“It’s really special,” Kelly said, “Just being with one of my best friends out there in this kind of atmosphere at this level is pretty cool to do. Both shooting the same score, both in it still. We just had a lot of fun.”
Sticker won the first two senior majors of the year and took his hometown Madison event three weeks ago for his fourth Champions victory of the season.
European Tour
SUTTON COLDFIELD, England – English trio Andy Sullivan, Oliver Wilson and James Morrison were part of a six-way tie going into the final round of the British Masters, while tournament favorite Justin Rose remained in contention despite carding a 2-over 74 on Saturday.
Joost Luiten of the Netherlands, Italy’s Guido Migliozzi and Niklas Norgaard of Denmark were also tied at 7under 209 as a blustery wind wreaked havoc at The Belfry.
Rose took the early lead after a 65 in the opening round but carded a 73 in the second and was a shot worse on Saturday to sit three shots back in an event he won in 2002 and hosted in 2018.
Luiten and Migliozzi both shot a 68, while the other four co-leaders all carded 70 in the third round.
Sullivan said he was “absolutely buzzing” to be in contention for a fifth European tour title after making birdies on the 17th and 18th.
Wilson surged into the lead with four birdies on his first seven holes, but missed from three feet for another on the ninth and then dropped shots on the 10th and 11th before carding seven straight pars.
France’s Antoine Rozner had holed a bunker shot on the eighth and birdied the ninth to join Wilson in the lead on 9 under, only to dump two wedge shots into the water on the 10th and make a quadruple-bogey 8.
Rose was initially put down for a triple bogey of his own on the 12th when he appeared to need multiple attempts to hack his ball out of a muddy lie on the edge of a water hazard, but had actually been taking two practice swings.
Matthew Baldwin made a hole-inone on the par-3 14th, which earns a donation of $63,500 from a tournament sponsor to a British cancer research organization as it is the same hole where tournament host Nick Faldo hit an ace during the 1993 Ryder Cup.