Kyle Stanley fired a four-under par 68 on Saturday to stretch his lead to five shots after three rounds of the US PGA Tour's Farmers Insurance Open.
Stanley missed a four-foot birdie putt at 18 on the Torrey Pines South Course to just miss breaking the 54-hole tournament record held by Tiger Woods.
Instead he matched the record set by Woods in 1998 with an 18-under total of 198, five strokes in front of John Huh and John Rollins.
"This is something you dream about as a kid," Stanley said. "But there's still one more round."
Huh, who booked his tour card in qualifying school, also posted a 68 as did Rollins to share second on 203.
Huh, a 21-year-old Korean-American, was born in the United States. His family moved to South Korea not long after he was born, but several years later returned Stateside, where Huh attended high school in Los Angeles.
Playing in just his second PGA Tour event, Huh ranks first in fairways hit this week.
Although he considers himself Korean-American Huh has played on the Korean Tour and said Korean golfers such as Yang Yong-eun and K.J. Choi have been a big influence on him.
"Y.E. and K.J. are big golf models over in Korea," he said. "I would love to play with them and see what they did and trying to follow what they have done."
South Korean Bae Sang-moon, a veteran of the Korea Tour, Japan Golf tour and Asian Tour who is in his rookie season on the US tour, carded an even par 72 for 204. He was joined at 12-under by Bill Haas (70).
Bae got off to a rocky start, with a double-bogey six at the second hole followed by three straight bogeys.
He stopped the rot with a birdie at the seventh, then reeled off four straight birdies from the 10th.
Stanley, in search of his first US PGA Tour title, started the day with a one-shot lead over Brandt Snedeker. He had built a three-shot lead after a birdie on the second hole and was never threatened.
His only miscue was a bogey at 12, where he missed a six-foot putt to save par.
"It was good," Stanley said of his round. "Really didn't get myself in too much trouble. I think it was just on 12 where I hit that five-iron a little long. It was really maybe the only tough part.
"Then I had 14, I hit nine-iron into that left bunker and didn't hit the best bunker shot. I think I probably had seven or eight feet to save par, and that was a tough putt. It was nice to make that and that kind of kept the round going for me."
His impressive length off the tee was on full display on the par-five 13th, where his massive tee shot gave him a seven-iron into the green and a birdie.
In all Stanley -- who was runner-up to Steve Stricker in the John Deere Classic last year for his best tour finish -- had five birdies, the last at the par-three 16th where he made a 20-foot putt.
Stanley said he wouldn't use his cushion as an excuse to play conservatively.
"You can't necessarily go out there and try to protect it," he said. "You've got to really just keep doing what got you to this point.
"I'll stick to my game plan off the tee and hopefully just continue to give myself a lot of chances."
There are no comments yet