The 30-year-old South Korean shot a 3-under 68 in the third round on Saturday to hold off a charge from Scheffler and 2023 US Open champion Wyndham Clark, who had matching 65s.<\/p>\n
Sungjae Im, Kim’s countryman, followed a second-round 61 with a 67 and was another two shots back with Stephan Jaeger and Tom Hoge. Jaeger’s 64 was the low round of the day at the TPC Craig Ranch.<\/p>\n
Kim, the field’s second highest-ranked player behind Scheffler at No. 24, was in position for a 59 in the second round, but had a bogey at 18 that forced him to settle for 60.<\/p>\n
His five-shot lead was tied for the second-biggest on tour through 36 holes this season behind Rory McIlroy’s six-shot edge when he defended his Masters championship in April.<\/p>\n
However, it was gone by the 11th hole in the third round.<\/p>\n
Three bogeys in a span of four holes dropped the four-time tour winner into a tie with Clark at 18-under. Clark had earlier pulled to within a stroke with a short eagle putt on the par-5 ninth.<\/p>\n
Clark took the lead with a scrambling birdie at the par-5 12th, making a putt after a bunker shot with his right foot in the grass, his flexed right knee almost touching the ground.<\/p>\n
Kim, Scheffler and Clark were tied at 19-under when Kim went in front with a birdie on the short par-4 14th after Scheffler and Clark settled for pars after trying to drive the green.<\/p>\n
Clark got even again, but Kim went in front for good with a birdie at the par-3 15th.<\/p>\n
Scheffler, a four-time major winner who ran away to an eight-shot victory at last year’s Nelson, answered his first bogey of the tournament on the par-3 fourth with three birdies over the final five holes on the front nine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth, a hometown favourite alongside Scheffler, faded with four bogeys on his first five holes on the back nine a day after six consecutive birdies to start his second nine spurred a 62. He shot 73.<\/p>\n
First-round leader Taylor Moore was back in contention after four consecutive birdies, but went in the water at 15 and ended up with a triple-bogey 6. He shot 69 and was 13-under.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 30-year-old South Korean shot a 3-under 68 in the third round on Saturday to hold off a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-690863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690863","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=690863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}