This one is heating up nicely.
Tiger Woods just keeps getting better.
The former world number one and 14-time Major winner is leading the way in the $9m Tour Championship finalé but two of europe’s leading lights are not far off.
Woods fired a third round of 65 to go -12 in the PGA Tour’s big money shoot-out and looked, at one stage, to be running away with it all. The American was -13 heading down the straight but bogeyed the 16th and Rory McIlroy birdied 18.
A five-shot lead was suddenly a manageable three shots and both McIlroy and new world number one Justin Rose are on -9.
Tied for 2nd?@McIlroyRory. pic.twitter.com/8h50QrTVxv
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 22, 2018
Following his round, McIlroy was trying to play down the rivalry with Woods, with whom he will be in the final pairing on Sunday afternoon, but found time to get in a playful dig. He remarked:
“I think I’ll wear red!”
Woods usually wears a red top during his final round so it will be interesting to see if the Northern Irishman goes ahead with the mind/fashion games.
“We’ll see what happens,” McIlroy continued, “but it’ll be exciting to be up there and have a chance to win the golf tournament.
“All I can do is worry about myself. It doesn’t matter who it is I’m playing with. It’s obviously exciting for the golf tournament. It’s exciting for golf in general that he’s up there. But for me, all I can do is concentrate on myself. The game is hard enough without having to… without looking at other people. Go out there, take care of my business, and hopefully that’s good enough.”
McIlroy admitted he has been guilty of looking at the leaderboard too much and insisted he must focus on his own game in the final round to stand any chance at all.
“Look,” he added, “Tiger is a notoriously great front-runner, but if I go out and I play similar tomorrow like I did today, I’ll have no complaints.”
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