American Kenny Perry fired his third straight round in the low 60s, posting a six-under 64 in Saturday's third round of the Colonial. Perry, the record-setting winner here in 2003, more than doubled his lead at the five million dollar PGA event. Perry began the third round with a three-shot advantage over DJ Trahan and Ted Purdy, who could not match his blistering pace. Entering this tournament, Perry's best round this year was a 66. He surpassed that for the third time with a bogey-free round and has 19 birdies and just one bogey through 54 holes. Perry's total of 18-under 192 had him a comfortable seven shots in front of Billy Mayfair and Steve Stricker, who appeared to be playing for second place.
With his big cushion, Perry can use Sunday to target his own 2003 tournament record of 19-under 261, which is three shots better than anyone else has ever played the Colonial Country Club course. First prize is worth 900,000 dollars.
Trahan and Purdy both shot one-over 71 to tumble out of contention, 10 strokes off the pace.
It was a bit of a disappointment for Purdy, who was coming off his first career win last week in the Byron Nelson.
Mayfair and Stricker each fired 66s to move to 11-under 199, one shot better than Australian Peter Lonard.
Having won the MCI Heritage earlier this year, Lonard shot a 65 that included seven birdies.
Brandt Jobe (67) and South African Rod Pampling (68) are at 9-under 201. Among those at 202 in Brett Ogilvy, who matched Perry for the best round of the day.
Perry, 44, is looking for his ninth career victory and second this season.
He won the Bay Hill Invitational earlier this year.
LEADING THIRD-ROUND SCORES (USA UNLESS NOTED):
192 - Kenny Perry 65-63-64
199 - Billy Mayfair 67-66-66, Steve Stricker 68-65-66
200 - Peter Lonard 69-66-65
201 - Brandt Jobe 65-69-67, Rod Pampling 66-67-68
202 - Aaron Baddeley (AUS) 69-66-67, Fredrik Jacobson (SWE) 68-69-65, Geoff
Ogilvy (AUS) 71-67-64, Ted Purdy 66-65-71, DJ Trahan 64-67-71
203 - Joe Durant 71-63-69, Scott Hend (AUS) 68-67-68, Bernhard Langer (GER)
68-69-66, David Toms 69-66-68
204 - Arjun Atwal (IND) 70-65-69, Tim Clark (RSA) 71-64-69, Jim Furyk
69-68-67, Corey Pavin 70-66-68, Rory Sabbatini (RSA) 67-69-68, John Senden
(AUS) 70-68-66, Kirk Triplett 66-66-72
205 - K.J. Choi (KOR) 69-66-70
206 - Kevin Na (KOR) 65-71-71, Justin Rose (GBR) 68-68-71
208 - Stuart Appleby (AUS) 68-69-71, Shigeki Maruyama (JPN) 69-70-69
209 - Stephen Ames (CAN) 73-68-68
211 - Daniel Chopra (SWE) 73-67-71
212 - Jesper Parnevik (SWE) 69-72-71, Craig Perks (NZL) 73-67-72.
Comments
Comments are closed.