BRADENTON, Fla. \u2014 Keith Horne of South Africa overcame the nerves of not feeling comfortable with his swing by posting a 6-under 66 for a one-shot lead Saturday in the Senior PGA Championship, giving him a shot at the biggest win of his career.<\/p>\n
Horne never contended in a regular major championship because he never played in one. He has nine Sunshine Tour wins in South Africa, none in the two decades he spent on the Asian Tour. His best world ranking was No. 173 in the world.<\/p>\n
But he was holding his own against past major champions like Stewart Cink and Vijay Singh.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than playing in a big golf tournament and feeling in full control of your golf swing, but you know, that\u2019s not the case this week,\u201d Horne said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like it\u2019s terrible or anything like that, but it\u2019s enough to make me nervous about just standing up and swinging it at the target.\u201d<\/p>\n
He managed just fine, his lone bogey coming on the opening hole. He was at 11-under 205, one shot ahead of Cink (70), Steve Allan (68), Scott Hend (72) and Thammanoon Sriroj of Thailand, who had thrills and a few spills in his round of 66.<\/p>\n
Sriroj had an eagle on the par-5 third hole, only to make double bogey on the par-5 seventh. He followed that with six birdies over the next seven holes and was tied for the lead until closing with a bogey on the 18th at Concession Golf Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the round start I had the par, par and eagle. I was feeling pretty good,\u201d Sriroj said. \u201cBut after the double bogey, I wasn\u2019t feeling too well. Then eventually ended up with a bogey on the last hole.\u201d<\/p>\n
He left out the six birdies in the middle, but it at least allowed him to think about winning after showing up at the Senior PGA Championship hopeful of making the cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I win, I might pass out,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Cink has six wins on the PGA Tour Champions, but no majors yet. He birdied both par 5s on the back nine to get within one shot. He is the most proven \u2014 the PGA Tour Champions player of the year in 2025 \u2014 of the 10 players separated by three shots going into the final round.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have to be aggressive,\u201d Cink said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a really good round tomorrow. I don\u2019t think I can expect to shoot the same as today and win this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horne says he\u2019s surprised to be leading, mainly because of the strong field and only his third time playing the Senior PGA. His best finish is a tie for 28th. And then there\u2019s the matter of his swing, which at least keeps him focused.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps as well as hinders at the same time, because I really have to concentrate really hard on every single golf shot,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t get ahead of myself, because it\u2019s not like I\u2019m playing so great I\u2019m thinking, \u2018Well, this is fantastic.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really staying in the moment, because I\u2019m worried about the golf swing and what could potentially go wrong,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it really does keep me in the moment, but it does also make me a little bit more anxious on a lot of the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRADENTON, Fla. \u2014 Keith Horne of South Africa overcame the nerves of not feeling comfortable with his swing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-594094","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\/594094","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=594094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}