NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) \u2014 Sepp Straka made three birdies and two eagles on the par 5s for an 8-under 64 and seized on some late misses by Scottie Scheffler to take a one-shot lead Saturday going into the final round of the Hero World Challenge.<\/p>\n
Straka chipped in for eagle on the par-5 sixth and played great golf just to keep pace with Scheffler, who had five straight 3s on his scorecard to start the third round and was 9 under for his round through 15 holes.<\/p>\n
Scheffler, going for a third straight win at Albany Golf Club, has stumbled over the final three holes every day this week \u2014 a double bogey on the 16th on Thursday, a bogey on the 16th on Friday, and then a bogey-par-bogey finish.<\/p>\n
He still had a 65 and will be in the final group with Straka on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Straka seized on the par 5s. Along with his chip-in on the sixth hole, he holed an 18-foot eagle putt on the downwind, par-5 15th. He also hit a 3-wood that landed perfectly in front of the green at the par-5 ninth that rolled out to 15 feet for a two-putt birdie.<\/p>\n
He trailed Scheffler by three shots through five holes, and by two shots with four holes left. But Straka was bogey-free on the day and finished at 18-under 198. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe definitely got it going quick,\u201d Straka said of the world\u2019s No. 1 player. \u201cIt didn\u2019t look like he was going to miss a putt there for a little bit. But it\u2019s golf, it usually evens out a lot and I just tried to focus on my own game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only par 4 that Straka birdied was No. 7, where the tee was moved back. That kept players from trying to drive the green and instead tested them with a wedge to a dangerous back-left pin. Straka took it on and hit it to 7 feet.<\/p>\n
Scheffler, who went left of the 16th fairway the opening two rounds \u2014 one of those leading to a penalty drop from a bush \u2014 this time found the short grass and it wasn\u2019t much better. He had an awkward stance, tugged it left into a bunker and the ball buried in the sand, leading to bogey.<\/p>\n
He also dropped a shot on the 18th by missing the green to the right \u2014 water is left \u2014 leaving a tricky pitch up the slope.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few unfortunate breaks, but overall did some really good stuff,\u201d Scheffler said.<\/p>\n
Alex Noren (67) and Hideki Matsuyama (68) were three shots behind Straka, while J.J. Spaun and Wyndham Clark each shot 69 and were four behind.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) \u2014 Sepp Straka made three birdies and two eagles on the par 5s for an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-329599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}