Jordan Spieth shot a five-under-par 65 on Saturday to sit top of the leaderboard at the Dean & DeLuca Invitational. The American’s tournament score of 12-under-par sees him take a one shot lead over Webb Simpson and Ryan Palmer into the final round at Colonial Country Club.
‘ Very pleased with the round. Felt like I struck the ball well, got off to a good start again and then short game really kept me in it in the middle of the round. So, my scrambling was kind of the key to the day today and hopefully hit some more fairways tomorrow and make those aggressive swings that I took advantage of when I did hit the fairways’ Spieth said.
He produced a polished front nine that was absent of any dropped shots and included three birdies, coming at the first, fourth and ninth.
His back nine was up and down that included three birdies and an unfortunate bogey right at the end.
The 22-year-old admitted there were some problems on the nine as he made his charge to the top.
‘Yeah, the up-and-down on the 10th, that was one of the worst lies I’ve had in the rough in a long time. So that was — I gave Michael a fist bump after the wedge shot and obviously a fist bump when I made the putt. That’s probably a one in five up-and-down. So, the 11th was fortunate. Not a great wedge, but a nice chip to make up for it. Then I had the same number that I had on the 11th, on the 12th into the pin and I made a more aggressive swing, a more confident swing and it showed. So that was certainly key for the round and put good swings on throughout the rest of the round. It just, the three-wood got a little off today, which kind of hurt me on the tee balls’ he said.
The two-time major winner is never the less in confident mood going into the final round and does not expect a repeat of what happened last week at TPC Four Seasons.
‘I’ll be disappointed if I don’t win tomorrow. Being in this position two weeks in a row, last Sunday was a tough day for me. Given the importance of the Byron Nelson to me personally. The Colonial is another place where I received a champion’s exemption in 2013 and I was very fortunate at that time any exemption I was able to receive, so I owe a lot to this tournament, it’s special to me as well. That doesn’t add any kind of pressure to it, when we stand on the first tee, it’s who plays, who finishes 72 holes potentially more better than the other. But, yeah, it would be really, really cool to win here’ he said.
In terms of the South African contingent, Charl Schwartzel is best placed at five-under-par followed by Tyrone van Aswegen at two-over-par.
