Dustin Johnson timed his run nicely to earn a two-stroke lead after the third round at the WSG Cadillac Championship on Saturday.
The long-hitting American birdied the 16th and 17th holes on his way to the day’s best score, a seven-under-par 65 in a light breeze at Doral’s Blue Monster.
Johnson posted a 13-under 203 total, but with seven others — including Englishman Luke Donald — within three strokes, he acknowledged he would have to go low yesterday to have a chance of securing his first World Golf Championships victory.
Photo: AFP
“It’s going to take another good round,” he said. “I played well today, drove it well, putt it well, hit the ball well, so I’m going to have to do that again tomorrow.”
This is Johnson’s fourth 54-hole lead in a USPGA Tour-sanctioned tournament, but interestingly, his first at any course other than Pebble Beach. The world No. 14, a three-time winner on the US tour, was not overly satisfied with his first two rounds, so he worked on some things with coach Butch Harmon on Saturday morning.
“The first two days I didn’t -really drive it that great,” he said. “I wasn’t hitting the type of shots I wanted, so we worked on the driver a little bit this morning and got that going really well.”
Johnson led by two strokes from Donald and Americans Matt Kuchar and Nick Watney, with Australian Adam Scott, Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, Italian Francesco Molinari and American Hunter Mahan three behind.
Mahan led for 12 holes, but faltered the down stretch, playing the final six holes in two-over, running up four bogeys and two birdies.
World No. 3 Donald won the previous WGC event only three weeks ago, so he was brimming with confidence.
“I’m playing very good golf right now, some of the best I’ve ever played,” he said after a 66. “The first two days I played just as well as today. I just struggled a little bit on the greens.”
Even if Donald were to win yesterday, he would not be tempted to ride his hot streak. Instead, he plans to take three weeks off to prepare for the Masters.
If the galleries following the leaders seemed somewhat sparse, perhaps that’s because many fans left after watching Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, who played together for the third successive day.
They finished soon after the leaders teed off and neither was particularly impressive, with Woods shooting 70, Mickelson 72.
However, at least Woods managed to make solid contact with most of his shots. On Friday, his tee shot at the par-four second went only 122 yards, while he skied his drive at No. 14 only 188 yards, although his ball landed in the fairway.
Woods did not speak to the media on Saturday. He sits 11 shots behind the leaders.
World No. 1 Martin Kaymer also struggled on Saturday, shooting 74 to plunge seven shots off the pace.
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
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed