Second-round leader Nick Flanagan birdied his final hole on Saturday to join fellow Australian Gavin Coles in first place after three rounds at the US Bank Championship.
Flanagan, who shared the second-round lead with Richard Johnson of Sweden, shot a 1-under 69 and Coles a 68 to get to 11 under at Brown Deer Park Golf Course.
Johnson also birdied the 18th hole to shoot even-par 70, tied with Jon Mills (64), George McNeill (66) and Ken Duke (68) a stroke back of the leaders.
PHOTO: AP
The low rounds came despite a drizzle that fell most of the day.
Five players were another shot back, including defending champion Joe Ogilvie, whose 68 on Saturday puts him in a good position to become the first repeat winner.
Kenny Perry, whose decision to play the tournament instead of the British Open was panned by players and the media, shot a third-round 69 to get to 6 under — too far back to have much of a chance at his fourth win this season.
PHOTO: AP
“My goal was to get within three, and I had my chances,” said Perry, who won the John Deere Classic last week. “If I could have made a couple putts coming in and got within three, I would have had a shot at this deal. It will take a magical round tomorrow. I’d have to shoot 61 or some crazy number, and that ain’t happening right now.”
Flanagan, who was promoted after winning three tournaments on the Nationwide Tour, led at the turn despite a bogey on the par-4 ninth, when he missed a short putt. The bogey dropped him back to 10 under, the score he and Johnson had to share the lead after two rounds.
Flanagan still retained at least a share of the lead until he bogeyed the par-4 17th. His third shot from green-side rough barely got onto the green, and he missed a long putt for par to fall a shot behind Coles.
The 24-year-old tour rookie made up for his mistake on the 557-yard, par-5 finishing hole. After a good drive, Flanagan hit a hybrid to 12-feet and barely missed an eagle putt that would have given him sole possession of first place.
Johnson, the first-round leader, also missed a putt for eagle at the 18th. He had to settle for a birdie that kept him just a shot out of first place.
Coles, whose 62 Friday was the low round of the tournament, stumbled through bogeys on the first two holes to fall to 7 under.
He rebounded with four birdies on the back nine, including back-to-back at 12 and 13, and his birdie at the par-4 16th got him to 11 under.
Mills, another former Nationwide Tour player, started on the back nine because he was so far behind the leaders when the day began.
After making up a pair on his first nine, Mills shot 4-under 30 on the front side.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with