Koivun fired a 10-under-par 61 on the way to taking the lead at Blaine on Saturday (Sunday AEST).<\/p>\n
“It \u200cfelt great,” Koivun said. “It’s what you work for. I definitely felt some nerves.”<\/p>\n
Koivun, in his just third tournament as a professional, moved to 20-under (193) and \u200cholds a three-shot lead on Ben Kohles and Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo going to Sunday’s (Monday AEST) final round at TPC Twin Cities.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Koivun, who announced last month that he \u200cwould forgo his senior collegiate season at Auburn to turn pro, finished on a tear with two eagles on the backside that allowed him to play the final 10 holes in 9-under.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That contributed to a tournament-record 28 on the backside, rolling in a 14-foot eagle putt on the last hole.<\/p>\n
“I got a good break on No.9 and kind of hit the ground running with that,” Koivun said.<\/p>\n
Koivun was dialled in from the fairway on the final \u200chole, with his approach shot \u200con the mark \u2060to set up his final eagle.<\/p>\n
“I had a pretty good number [into the green],” Koivun said.<\/p>\n
Koivun’s bogey-free \u200bround included an eagle 3 on No.12.<\/p>\n
Grillo and Kohles also were without bogeys on the way to posting 65s.<\/p>\n
Grillo eagled No.18 shortly after Koivun accomplished that. Kohles, the first-round leader, had three birdies on both sides.<\/p>\n
“That was my highlight of the day there on 18,” Grillo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I hit it well, playing from the fairway like I wanted to out here and then gave myself a lot of opportunities; couldn’t take advantage of them.”<\/p>\n
Koivun said he \u2060knows there’s a huge test ahead as he aims for his first professional \u200cvictory.<\/p>\n
“I’m sure some \u200bof the pins will be tucked and we have a lot of great players behind me, but just going to stick to my game \u200bplan and try \u200cto smile,” Koivun said.<\/p>\n
Michael Brennan (63) and Chandler Phillips (66) are tied for fourth place at 16-under.<\/p>\n
No Australians made the cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Koivun fired a 10-under-par 61 on the way to taking the lead at Blaine on Saturday (Sunday AEST).…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-711288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}