SAN DIEGO \u2014 Joel Dahmen couldn\u2019t believe what he just saw. Playing partner Justin Rose, enjoying an extended heater at Torrey Pines, had a lie on Saturday in the first cut of rough off the fairway on the South Course\u2019s challenging seventh hole. The pin location was as tough as it comes, tucked into the upper right corner. Rose would later admit that he wasn\u2019t firing at the flagstick, but his 9-iron faded toward it, and the ball ended up five feet from the hole. The Englishman converted a third straight birdie.<\/p>\n
Dahmen already had witnessed a bunch of striped drives and dart-like iron shots over the morning, but he was dumbfounded by the play at 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo he\u2019s got to hit it high over the tree out of the first cut,\u201d Dahmen described, \u201cso it could fly, come out dead\u2014and he hits this thing to the moon, it comes down to four feet. You don\u2019t hit that shot in a practice round let alone when you have a six- or seven-shot lead on Saturday and you\u2019re hanging out.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, that was just kind of like, \u2018OK, you win.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
RELATED:\u00a0Johnson Wagner absolutely roasts Brooks Koepka in his network debut at Torrey Pines<\/p>\n
Clearly, Rose has ground even his closest challengers into submission going into Sunday\u2019s final round. The World No. 10 has recorded 24 red numbers, with one eagle, and in shooting a four-under-par 68 on Saturday, Rose forged a six-shot lead with a 54-hole tournament record total of 21-under 195.<\/p>\n
Rose, seeking his second win at Torrey Pines and 13th tour victory overall, has an opportunity to win the tournament wire-to-wire, and in an almost unbelievable circumstance, he can pull off something Tiger Woods never did in his seven wins at Torrey. Rose would be the first to hold a solo lead in every round and win San Diego\u2019s tour event since Tommy Bolt in 1955. Johnny Miller went wire-to-wire in 1982, but he was tied after the first round.<\/p>\n
The well-mannered Rose and volcanic Bolt in the same company? That\u2019s like pairing the Dalai Lama and Happy Gilmore.<\/p>\n
Woods is tied with three others in the tournament for the largest margin of victory of eight strokes. At three different times on Saturday, Rose created that gap, only to surrender two shots in that margin late on a two-shot swing with Dahmen at the par-3 16th.<\/p>\n
Dahmen shot a 68 in the third round that he figured was the best he could do as a short hitter on the meaty South, and he gained no ground on Rose. A one-time tour winner who started this season with only conditional status, Dahmen is alone in second at 15 under, with Japan\u2019s Ryo Hisatsune (68) and South Korea\u2019s Si Woo Kim (69) eight shots behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy only hope is if he doesn\u2019t set his alarm or he somehow starts hitting in the rough on the back nine maybe,\u201d Dahmen said. \u201cI don\u2019t know. The way he\u2019s playing and what he\u2019s doing, I would be pleased with second place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this week\u2014and he wasn\u2019t citing Rose specifically at the time\u2014Dahmen pointed out that the best players on the tour were getting younger and that there were only a handful of competitors left in their 40s. Rose is 45, but he\u2019s maintained his strength through diligent fitness training and his competitive mind seems as sharp as ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo still have the drive with the career that he\u2019s had is very impressive,\u201d Dahmen said. \u201cHe puts a lot of work into his body. His ability to still grind and practice and spend the time on it when he\u2019s got everything you could want is really impressive, honestly. It\u2019s almost inspiring for me, I\u2019m seven years younger than him, I\u2019m getting outdriven by 30 yards. I\u2019ve got to get in a little better shape to hang out with Justin.\u201d<\/p>\n
The current state of Rose\u2019s game and mental strength figures to come into play on Sunday as he tries to maintain a competitive edge with such a comfortable lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s never going to be any complacency,\u201d Rose said. \u201cI think there\u2019s always enough respect for the game of golf in the back of your mind that you\u2019ve got to do everything right tomorrow. You\u2019re going to come out, have to be focused, have to play well. Obviously somebody can always really shoot a great round and therefore you\u2019ve got to get around this golf course in a pretty decent score.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that\u2019s the mentality. I kind of have to just control what I can control from the first hole tomorrow. But I\u2019ve enjoyed playing the golf course this week. I want to continue to enjoy the week as a whole, and, yeah, it\u2019s another great round in good weather on an awesome golf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
RELATED:\u00a0Brooks Koepka on the putting woes marring his PGA Tour return: \u2018It can\u2019t get any worse\u2019<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2014 Joel Dahmen couldn\u2019t believe what he just saw. Playing partner Justin Rose, enjoying an extended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,44,85],"class_list":["post-452467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}