Jason Day of Australia seized a two-stroke lead after three rounds of the PGA Championship, where he is to attempt to hold off US Masters and US Open winner Jordan Spieth for a first major title.
Day survived a late double-bogey to card a six-under 66 at Whistling Straits on Saturday, his 15-under total of 201 putting him two strokes in front of Spieth.
The 22-year-old Texan birdied six of his last eight holes in a seven-under 65 for 203.
Photo: AFP
However, Spieth said he would not be thinking about joining Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods as the only men to win three majors in the same year when he teed off with Day yesterday.
“Just to try to get my name on the Wanamaker Trophy... That is the only history I will be thinking of,” said Spieth, who can also seize the world No. 1 ranking from Rory McIlroy, who carded a four-under 68 for a six-under total of 210.
“It should be an exciting round tomorrow,” said Day, who is looking for a major breakthrough after finishing with at least a share of second in three grand slam tournaments — with nine top 10 finishes in six years on the game’s biggest stages.
An unusually yielding Straits course made for a chaotic leaderboard as player after player surged upward.
When the dust settled, Branden Grace of South Africa had the lowest round of the day, a bogey-free eight-under 64 for a share of third on 204 alongside Justin Rose of England, who dropped into the tie with a bogey at 18 to cap a 68.
Martin Kaymer of Germany, trying to reprise his 2010 PGA Championship victory at Whistling Straits, fired seven birdies in a seven-under 65 for 205.
Matt Jones of Australia, who took a two-stroke lead into the third round, kept pace early. He salvaged a bogey after hitting into a hospitality suite at the ninth, but dropped four shots in three holes going bogey-bogey-double bogey at 15, 16 and 17 on his way to a one-over 73 for 206.
He was joined on 10-under by American Tony Finau (69), while Dustin Johnson of the US and Anirban Lahiri of India tied for eighth on nine-under 207.
After birdies at nine and 10 let him keep pace with Jones, Day took the outright lead with an eagle at the par-five 11th, where he rolled in a 13-foot putt.
He followed with birdies at holes 13 and 14 — stringing together six straight holes with scores of three.
Then came Day’s double-bogey at 15, where he needed two shots to get out of a bunker.
He was frustrated not to pull the shot back at the par-five 16th, but drained a 24-footer for birdie at 17.
Spieth was slow to join the day’s birdie blitz, following his opening birdie with nine straight pars before lighting up the back nine with two bursts of three birdies — from 11 through 13 and from 16 through 18.
After missing a putt at 10, Spieth said, he told himself: “It is now or never.”
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
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
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