Rickie Fowler’s fine-tuning for The Masters stepped up a gear on Saturday as he went 8 under par through 16 holes to tie Sung Kang before two late slips.
Fowler will need to close the three-shot gap as he looks to chase down Kang for his fifth career PGA Tour victory, and second this season.
It was a great day for the Californian as he could do no wrong. He went for the drivable par-4 12th hole and nearly hit the green before getting up and down for birdie. He almost jarred his difficult pitch from the trees short-right of the green at the par-5 13th hole.
He birdied 14, giving him three straight for the second time in the round. Everything was going so, so right, Fowler crafting a potentially epic round, considering the conditions.
Then, as has been his wont this week, he fell apart at the finish. Fowler missed three putts of five feet or less on the last two holes, going bogey, double-bogey to end the round.
‘Drove it well, hit a lot of fairways and greens, made some good putts,’ Fowler said. ‘Really not [looking] at the last two holes. It was a great day of golf.’
As for the last two holes, Fowler said he was aiming around a spike mark on 17, and the putt broke more than he anticipated. His four-putt double-bogey on 18 was even tougher to stomach.
‘The second putt, my par putt, it’s supposed to go right,’ Fowler said with a disbelieving smile. ‘I started it inside left. I thought I hit a great putt.’
Fowler has played holes 15-18 in a combined 6 over the last two days, but at least he’s in a familiar position at three shots off the lead. He was three back heading into the final round at the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship and 2015 Players Championship, and won them both.
Sung Kang has never played with Fowler, has never won a Tour event, and has never even held the 54-hole lead in one.
But he has never led through 36 holes either, and that went well. Kang birdied the first hole and the fourth to steady his nerves, then fought the Golf Club of Houston to a draw in the wind.
‘It was playing very hard today,’ Kang said. ‘The wind was blowing much harder and the greens got a lot firmer because we played in the afternoon. The greens got a lot faster.’
Kang was born and educated in Korea, but he lives in Dallas and works with Los Angeles-based swing coach George Gankas. The L.A. connection, and the Kobe-and-Shaq era, turned him into a Lakers fan. He has been going out to eat this week in Koreatown in Houston, but after Saturday’s wind-blown third round, he wasn’t sure he had any energy left to do anything.
‘I am so tired right now,’ Kang said. ‘I have no power to think about anything.’
The only South African to make the weekend, Tyron van Aswegen, shot 75 on Saturday and is in T54.
Photo: Stacy Revere/Getty Images
