Australia’s Karl Vilips has slipped down the leaderboard, shooting a third-round 71 to be in a tie for 18th. Vilips had been right in touch after opening rounds of 68 and 67, but on Sunday (AEST) mixed two birdies with a double bogey (on the par-4 sixth) to be nine shots off the lead.<\/p>\n
Hubbard’s late run of birdies, before he settled for a par on the closing hole at Dunes Golf and Beach Club, capped a day of low scoring with several players jockeying for the lead.<\/p>\n
When it ended, eight players were within five shots of Hubbard, a group that included Brooks Koepka (64) and 45-year-old Presidents Cup captain Brandt Snedeker (67).<\/p>\n
Hubbard was at 16-under (197), one shot ahead of Aaron Rai, who birdied four straight holes to start the back nine and closed with five successive pars for a 66.<\/p>\n
This is Hubbard’s 274th start on the PGA Tour. His best result was a runner-up finish in the Houston Open when it was held in the fall in 2019. More than any shot or putt, he has attributed his work this week mainly to a good attitude.<\/p>\n
“I felt like I had some of the best ball control I’ve had all season, maybe my whole career today, but I felt like I was kind of leaving a few out there in the middle of the round,” Hubbard said.<\/p>\n
“I think Mark a couple of weeks ago would have gotten pretty frustrated and turned a 64 into a 68,” he said. “I just stayed really patient and just tried and kept hitting good shot after good shot and eventually the putts started going in.”<\/p>\n
Koepka, with his best chance at winning since returning to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf, began the day out of the top 20 and at least gave himself a chance, sitting five shots behind in a tie for eighth.<\/p>\n
“If I can continue to do what I did today as far as ball-striking, which I feel like I’ve done over the past three months, it’s just a matter of getting that putter heated up,” Koepka said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I feel like I’m striking it as good as I ever have, driving it as good as I ever have. If I can continue to do that, then I’m going to be very pleased where I’m at for a while.”<\/p>\n
Koepka and Rai already are set for Aronimink next week and the second major of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ryan Ruffels and Cam Davis are the other Australians in the field at South Carolina.<\/p>\n
Ruffels shot a third-round 72 and is in a tie for 43rd. Davis is three shots further back and in a tie for 70th at one-under for the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s Karl Vilips has slipped down the leaderboard, shooting a third-round 71 to be in a tie for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-659421","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\/659421","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=659421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}