Source : ABC NEWS
Ludvig Åberg made his third eagle of the week and kept the mistakes to a minimum on Saturday in The Players Championship with a one-under 71 that gave the 26-year-old Swede a three-shot lead going into the final round at the TPC Sawgrass.
Åberg had a couple of chances to ruin the hopes of practically everyone chasing him.
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He had 7-iron to the green from 176 metres away in the fairway on the par-five 16th. The 26-year-old had a 2.4m birdie putt to a front pin on the island-green 17th. And he had 7.6m for birdie on the last.
He played them in one-over — two pars and a three-putt bogey at the end — that was a reminder on this dangerous Stadium Course that the final 18 holes can still feel a long way off.
Åberg said he would have liked at least one birdie “and that three-putt annoys me a little bit”.
“But I started with a two-shot lead and I ended with a three-shot lead, so that’s a positive,” he said.
Åberg was at 13-under 203 and will be in the final group with Michael Thorbjornsen, who also lives in the area and is at the TPC Sawgrass when he’s not on tour. They are friends who play often, just as they did as two of the most elite players in college. Both were number one in the PGA Tour University ranking to earn PGA Tour cards.
Thorbjornsen made up ground with a 67 to land in the final group as he tries to become only the third player — and first since Craig Perks in 2002 — to win The Players in his first try.
“I don’t think I have to change too much, especially on courses like this,” Thorbjornsen said.
“I think if you play some really steady golf you’ll run into some birdies. Does anyone have a bogey-free round either yesterday or today? I’m not too sure, but there aren’t many.
“So I think slow and steady wins the race, and we’re just going to play some solid golf.”
Min Woo Lee and Jason Day, the two remaining Australians in the field, will start the final round on four-under, trailing by nine shots.
Cameron Young was Åberg’s biggest threat on the back nine, holing a 13.7m birdie putt on the par-three 13th and getting away with a wedge he hit a little heavy on the par-three 17th. It settled inside 60cm away, the closest shot of the day.
Two shots behind going to the 18th, the closing hole ate him up. Young tugged his drive just enough that it barely found the water down the left side. He pushed his third shot into the nasty, rough-covered moguls and chipped through the firm, fast green into a bunker. But he holed a 2.4m putt for double bogey and escaped with a 72 to leave him four shots behind.
Big blunders cost so many others.
Justin Thomas, looking strong in his second tournament back from lower back surgery in November, went from the water to the rough and then over the green in making a triple bogey on the sixth hole. His tee shot on the reachable par-four 12th found the water. But he kept it together, had a pair of birdies later and salvaged a 72.
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Thomas was at eight-under 208, five shots behind along with Matt Fitzpatrick (69), Brian Harman (69), Viktor Hovland (69), Corey Conners (72) and Xander Schauffele (74). Schauffele was in the final group and managed only one birdie while hitting just eight greens.
Young is at The Players for the fourth time and has never cracked the top 50, and yet his optimism was running high even after a double bogey to finish.
“I cost myself two off the tee and I saved myself one with the putter,” he said of the 2.4m putt he made.
“So it could have been worse. I drew a terrible lie right of the green, somewhere that it feels like you should have a decent chance to get up and down. Saved myself one with the putter is what I’m going to take away from it.”
That he felt he was still in the game said more about the give and take nature of the TPC Sawgrass than Åberg and his uber efficient swing that saw him play a Ryder Cup just four months after he got out of college in 2023.
Åberg shot a 63 in the second round to take the lead. Thomas shot a 62 last year. The best score Saturday was a 65 by Robert MacIntyre.
“Those numbers are out there, and no reason why I can’t be the one to shoot them,” Young said.
And so the final group is a pair of locals — one from Sweden by way of Texas Tech, the other from just outside Boston by way of Stanford. Neither plays the Stadium Course all that much because it’s rarely in the condition seen at The Players.
But they know their way around, just not with so much at stake.
AP/ABC
