A much-craved second major continues to elude him but Adam Scott may be one great round from capping his decorated career with a historic second season-ending Tour Championship title.<\/p>\n
As golf’s biggest names jostle for the $US10 million ($A14 million) winner’s cheque in Atlanta, Scott quietly but steadily climbed into a tie for third place entering the final round.<\/p>\n
The 2006 champion compiled a classy third-round five-under-par 65 at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club to position himself three shots behind Norwegian leader Viktor Hovland.<\/p>\n
With his own 65, Hovland turned a halfway share of the lead into a one-shot buffer over American Ryan Gerard (66) as he reached 15 under.<\/p>\n
While 2023 champion Hovland is hoping to join grand slam-winning greats Rory McIlroy (2016, 2019, 2022) and Tiger Woods (2007, 2009) as only the third multiple Tour Championship winner, Scott is also playing for history.<\/p>\n
At 46 years, one month and 14 days, Scott would become the oldest FedExCup champion, eclipsing Vijay Singh, who was more than a year younger when he won in 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So often cruelling his winning chances on the greens, putting was for once Scott’s saving grace on Saturday (Sunday AEST).<\/p>\n
The former world No.1 drained 132 yards worth of putts, including near 25-footers for three of his six birdies on the eighth, 13th and 17th holes.<\/p>\n
It was Scott’s second-best putting round of the year and presented the 2013 Masters champion with an enticing opportunity to land first PGA Tour victory since February, 2020.<\/p>\n
“It’s a good spot. Within striking distance,” said Scott, who has only recorded two bogeys through 54 holes, the fewest of anyone this week.<\/p>\n
“It’s so congested, though. It’s going to need a really great round, I think. There’s someone lurking who’s going to have that.”<\/p>\n
Min Woo Lee, Australia’s only other player in the elite 30-man field for the $US40 million showpiece, remains an outside hope of becoming the first Tour Championship debutant to win since Xander Schauffele in 2017.<\/p>\n
Lee is equal ninth after carding a third-round 66, but will need to reel in a raft of superstars. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
At 12 under, world No.1 Scottie Scheffler (66) shares third spot with fellow American Chris Gotterup (67), Scott and Swede Ludvig Aberg (65). \u00a0<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy was the biggest mover of the day, a round of 63 vaulting the world No.2 from 23rd to joint seventh with Cameron Young (68) at 10 under.<\/p>\n
Then it’s Lee and American trio Russell Henley (66), Jacob Bridgeman (66) and Sam Burns (67) all at nine under.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old Scott is relishing his crack at another big title.<\/p>\n
“I can kind of stick with my game plan of being fairly conservative at least for the front nine,” Scott said.<\/p>\n
“And if I can execute that, then maybe I’ve got to start flag hunting a little bit and being a bit more aggressive than I have been.<\/p>\n
“But I’ll try to play that by ear when I’m out there. It’s fun to be in the mix for the Tour Championship and the FedExCup.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A much-craved second major continues to elude him but Adam Scott may be one great round from capping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-873652","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\/873652","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=873652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}