{"id":234462,"date":"2025-10-18T17:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T17:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/234462\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T17:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T17:52:07","slug":"keita-nakajima-leads-by-2-after-third-round-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/234462\/","title":{"rendered":"Keita Nakajima leads by 2 after third round in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oct 18, 2025, 07:51 AM ET<\/p>\n<p>NEW DEHLI &#8212; Japanese golfer <a data-player-guid=\"9b8ba3bb-27d1-3870-99a1-6e2a5a582efa\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/4699418\/keita-nakajima\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Keita Nakajima<\/a> shot a bogey-free, 7-under 65 to take a two-stroke lead at DP World India Championship after the third round Saturday, moving in sight of his second title on the European tour.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old Nakajima, a former top-ranked amateur, has two European Ryder Cup stars as his nearest challengers with <a data-player-guid=\"a92f7d7e-7082-1351-2e7b-80fe13591e53\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/5539\/tommy-fleetwood\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tommy Fleetwood<\/a> (69) in second place and <a data-player-guid=\"81036860-da90-8d9e-be1e-38fdfff557fc\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/4587\/shane-lowry\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shane Lowry<\/a> (69) a stroke back in third.<\/p>\n<p>No. 2-ranked <a data-player-guid=\"65575c5e-0ef2-9f58-6495-42da8638a332\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/3470\/rory-mcilroy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rory McIlroy<\/a>, the main attraction at Delhi Golf Club, shot 68 and was in a tie for 15th place, seven strokes off the lead heading into the final round.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m probably two shots too far behind to have a realistic chance,&#8221; McIlroy said.<\/p>\n<p>Nakajima birdied four of his first eight holes and then three in a row starting at No. 12 over a combined 70 feet to jump clear of then-leader Fleetwood. He parred his way home to retain the lead in his bid for a first title on the tour since March 2024 at the Hero Indian Open.<\/p>\n<p>He said the secret to his good third round was being able to watch his playing partner, Lowry.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I love his swing tempo,&#8221; Nakajima said, &#8220;and I copied him. So that&#8217;s why my swing [was] better than yesterday. And mindset was great.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fleetwood, who held the overnight lead, birdied two of his first three holes and the par-5 No. 8. His only bogey came at the 17th after three-putting from 30 feet, but he made amends with a birdie at the last to make it into the final group.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Keita is not far enough ahead where he&#8217;s completely in control,&#8221; said Fleetwood, who won the Tour Championship on the PGA Tour in August and was the top points scorer for Europe in its Ryder Cup victory last month. &#8220;Just go into tomorrow, enjoy it. Final group is always great. You&#8217;ve got to enjoy those moments. You don&#8217;t know when they&#8217;re going to come again.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 18, 2025, 07:51 AM ET NEW DEHLI &#8212; Japanese golfer Keita Nakajima shot a bogey-free, 7-under 65&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-234462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}