St. Andrews, Scotland …
Miguel Angel Jimenez is determined to become just a second Spaniard since the late, great Seve Ballasteros to win a Major Championship at St. Andrews.
Jimenez, 54 battled the bright but very windy conditions in posting a third-round level par 72 and to a two-stroke nine-under par lead into the final round of the Senior Open.
Ballesteros is the only Spanish-born golfer to have won golf’s oldest Major, in capturing the 1979 Open at Royal Lytham and St. Annes before his memorable fist-pumping triumph five years later at the Home of Golf.
The Senior Open, and the over-50s fifth Major, was first staged in 1987 and with Jimenez, and knick-named ‘The Mechanic’, now poised to become also the very first Spaniard to lift the Claret Jug replica.
He said: “Seve was my reason why I start playing golf and he was like my inspiration as I was 20-years old when he won The Open here.
Miguel Angel Jimenez now just one round from joining Seve Ballesteros as the only other Spaniard to win a Major at St. Andrews.
“Well, it would be amazing now if I can join him in that club. I would love to win but it is going to be a hard day and whoever had the most patience and the most rhythm in these conditions will win.”
Four players – Germany’s Bernhard Langer (73), the American duo of Tom Pernice Jnr (71) and Kirk Triplett (73) along with Canadian Stephen Ames (74) – share second place on seven-under par.
Langer looks poised to be Jimenez’s biggest threat having won the event on three occasions since 2010 including a three-shot success a year ago at Royal Porthcawl.
Tom Watson, who like Jimenez and Langer has never won at St. Andrews, had matched his age in shooting a 68 late on Friday and moved into a share of the lead at 10-under when he eagled the fifth and birdied the sixth.
But the eight-time Major champ, who had bid farewell to The Open at St. Andrews in 2015, came unstuck in doubling the par-5 14th and then dropped shots at 16 and 17 in a round of 73 to drop back into a tie for sixth at six-under.
He said: “I am still in a good position just three behind, it’s good to be in the position.
“I wish I had just been a couple shots lower, because it’s going to take — this course, it always bunches up. The players seem like they always bunch up on this golf course.
“Right now, I’m in a bunch just behind the leaders and going to have to play some really good golf tomorrow to be — to come out in front.”
Friday’s two hour and 20-minute fog delay meant the third round did not finish to just before 9am and with Scots Colin Montgomerie and Sandy Lyle heading off in the same group smack on 1pm and each on five-under but with Monty shooting a 72 to Lyle’s disappointing 76.
Monty played his opening 10 holes in one-under that included a fifth hole birdie ahead of braving the ‘into your face’ windswept closing holes.
But after bogeys at 11 and 13, the Scot delighted in being just one of two players in the top-20 to birdie 16.
And being just four off the lead, Monty’s got the bit between his teeth as he seeks a fourth Senior’s Major and what would be an impressive 13th Seniors title since joining the over-50s ranks just over five years ago.
Monty said: “Hey, I now have a chance here. A real chance here.
“But it was an horrendous day in the office and just as we turned for home it got horrendous and it was on the ninth green and we thought ‘oh, bugger it’.
“I then missed a couple of short putts on 11 and 13 for pars, and I could have done with them, but at the same time you never know because hey, I could be off to a flyer tomorrow.
“I am just very encouraged to have finished the way I did on those last few holes.
“Tomorrow is a matter now of getting off to a good start because today I was just one-under at the turn and it was not good enough because you need the credit in hand because you are going to have to draw on that credit over the back nine.”
Lyle struggled at the outset in taking a double at the second when he sent his tee shot way right into gorse bushes and while he played a provisional the efforts of many following the group failed to find the Scot’s original ball.
The Balquidder golfer pulled back to five-under with birdies on five and six but it would prove his Old Course highwater mark in dropping six shots from the eighth to 14th holes.
Lyle’s one bright spot in a disappointing score of 76 was his chip-in birdie on 16.
