San Francisco (AFP)
Legendary Tiger Woods will likely wait to clinch his 16th Grand Slam title, which would also have been his 5th in the PGA Championship: his third round ended with four bogeys and two birdies (+2) relegating him to a provisional 63rd place, Saturday.
At midday in San Francisco, the best ranked, among which the Chinese leader Haotong Li and his dolhpins Brooks Koepka, double title holder, Tommy Fleetwood or the French Mike Lorenzo-Vera, had not yet started their 3rd tower.
Unless these collapse, Woods should see his delay increase in the evening, which will only further extinguish his hopes of coronation.
After an encouraging start Thursday (-2), Tiger finished two strokes over the par Friday, repeating the poor performance on Saturday, in cloudy, cool and windy conditions on the public course at TPC Harding Park.
The day before, the "Tiger" had nevertheless shown determination, hoping that his putting would improve. This was not the case, except on holes 16 and 18 where he made his birdies.
Even his drive looked less bloody on day three, a result of the 44-year-old star's lack of competition: the PGA Championship is only his second tournament in five months, three weeks after a missed return to Memorial.
Among the golfers who also finished their third round, Justin Thomas still struggled to assume his status as the new world number one. Two of its four bogeys were framed at holes 16 and 18, putting down a performance that could have been much better thanks to six birdies.
"I am very upset. I let a good lap slip away, I did not capitalize on my good start," railed the American, temporarily back to 40th place (-1).
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