Sunday, July 01, 2018

Kelly rebounds from putting miscue to regain one-shot lead at US Seniors OpenBy Ron Driscoll, USGA
Jerry Kelly saved par on the 18th hole and holds the lead as he seeks to win his first USGA championship. (USGA/Chris Keane)
39th U.S. Senior Open l #USSeniorOpen
Colorado Springs, Colo.
Round 3: Par 70, 7,156 yards l Hole LocationsChampionship History l Media Center

Jerry Kelly, who was sailing along with a three-stroke lead on Saturday midway through Round 3 of the 39th U.S. Senior Open Championship at The Broadmoor, overcame a near-disastrous three-putt from 3½ feet on the 12th hole to retain the lead by one stroke over David Toms heading into Sunday’s final round.
Kelly, 51, who is seeking to become only the second player to hold the solo lead after every round of the championship (Dale Douglass in 1986), stood at 6 under when he hit his tee shot on the 207-yard, par-3 12th hole just over the green into the first cut of rough. He putted the ball from there to 3 feet, 4 inches, then lipped out twice from short range for a double bogey.
“I told you yesterday, I’m a jumpy putter,” Kelly said after the round. “I’m a very good putter, but those types of things happen to me. I know what I do in those situations, pick the putter up, bang it down on the ball and it squirts a different direction.”
Kelly dropped into a tie with former college teammate Tim Petrovic after the double bogey, and he fell behind when Petrovic made a tap-in birdie a few minutes later on the par-4 14th. But Kelly parred in, and wayward drives late in the round cost Petrovic, as he bogeyed three of his last four holes.
Kelly, a three-time winner on both the US PGA Tour and Senior Tour will begin the final round at 2:45 p.m local time  in the final Sunday pairing with Toms, the 2001 US PGA champion who shot a 4-under 66, sharing the low round of the day. Toms, 51, who missed the cut in his U.S. Senior Open debut last year, is one stroke ahead of Petrovic, who finished with a 1-over 71 and is tied for third with Kirk Triplett, the 2017 runner-up who shot 68 on Saturday.
Petrovic’s sliced drive on the difficult 17th hole bounced down a cart path before rolling into the rough, where a youngster slid in and scooped up the ball. A marshal immediately marked the spot where the ball came to rest and Petrovic dropped the ball without penalty, good-naturedly asking the boy why he hadn’t kicked it closer to the fairway for him.
“When I got to the ball, it looked like [the boy] was really upset, so I just made the comment and he thought it was pretty funny,” said Petrovic, who won one event in his PGA Tour career as a late bloomer out of the University of Hartford, where he played with Kelly for three years.
 “I didn’t want to make him feel like it was OK to do it, I just wanted to make him feel like it’s not the end of the world.”
One stroke behind Petrovic and Triplett in a tie for fifth place are Paul Goydos (70), 2016 U.S. Senior Open runner-up Miguel Angel Jimenez (73), and Brandt Jobe, who tied Toms and 2010 champion Bernhard Langer for the day’s low round of 66. Jobe made a similar Saturday push in last year’s championship at Salem Country Club, where a third-round 62 moved him from 29th to third place, where he eventually finished. He moved from 17th to a tie for fifth on Saturday.
Davis Love III, who along with Toms is the only player among the top 14 to win a major championship (1997 PGA), is among three players tied for eighth place at even-par 210. Love got to 3 under, just off the tolead, before falling back with bogeys on three of his last five holes.

THIRD-ROUND LEADERBOARD
206 Jerry Kelly 66 69 71
207 David Toms 70 71 66
208 Tim Petrovic 72 65 71, Kirk Triplett 74 66 68

SELECTED SCORES
209 Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain) 68 68 73 (T5)
210 Paul Broadhurst (England) 71 70 69 (T8)
211 Colin Montgomerie (Scotland) 71 73 67 (T11)
212 Philip Golding (England)72 67 73 (14th)
214 Bernhard Langer (Germany) 72 76 66 (T17)

TO VIEW ALL THE SCORES

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