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Pettersson Maintains Lead At Wyndham

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The Associated Press

Published: August 17, 2008

GREENSBORO, N.C. - The pressure to follow a record round with an even better number got to Carl Pettersson. Just not enough to cost him the lead.

Pettersson topped the Sedgefield Country Club leaderboard for the second straight day, shooting a 4-under 66 on Saturday to follow his tournament-record 61 and take a two-stroke lead after three rounds of the Wyndham Championship.

A local fan favorite who went to high school in Greensboro and is on the tournament's board of directors, Pettersson had a 19-under 191. The Swede is in position to claim his third career PGA Tour victory and first since 2006 - even if he admitted that he occasionally tried too hard to outdo his second-round performance.

"Unless you get off to a really hot start, you kind of feel like you're behind the 8-ball," Pettersson said. "Sometimes you can start pressing too much, and in golf, pressing's not really good to do. You've got to let the birdies happen, let the putts go in. You can't really force them in. ... I think it's easy to get agitated the day after you made everything."
Scott McCarron was second. He holed a 45-yard sand shot on 18 for a 64. Briny Baird (62), Garrett Willis (69) and Kevin Streelman (67) were six strokes back.

Pettersson had three birdies and an eagle, opening with four pars before his 3 on the 529-yard, par-5 fifth. He landed his approach 4 feet from the pin and sank that putt to eagle the hole for the second time in three days.

But he also bogeyed the course's easiest hole - the par-5 15th - for the second day in a row. He sent his approach shot into the primary rough, recovered, then lipped out consecutive 4-foot putts to slip to 18 under.

He regained that stroke two holes later with a birdie on the par-4 17th after landing his fairway shot 4 feet from the flagstick. On the 18th, he left his 20-foot birdie putt 4 inches short and tapped in for par.

McCarron, who entered trailing Pettersson by four strokes, was bogey-free and had three consecutive birdies on Nos. 2-4 to move to 14 under.

LPGA: At Ottawa, Yani Tseng finished off a course-record 8-under 64 in the rain-delayed second round, then shot a 68 in the third to take a four-stroke lead in the Canadian Women's Open.

Tseng had a 14-under 202.

South Korea's Se Ri Pak (68) was second, and defending champion Lorena Ochoa (74) and Hull (72) were at 8 under. Pak had her first LPGA Tour hole-in-one, acing the 178-yard fifth hole with a 6-iron.

Michelle Wie, using the last of her six LPGA Tour exemptions this year, was tied for 14th at 2 under after a 69.

CHAMPIONS: At Sunriver, Ore., Fred Funk shot a bogey-free 7-under 65 to take a one-stroke lead over Jay Haas after the third round of the JELD-WEN Tradition.

The 52-year-old Funk, the winner of the season-opening MasterCard Championship in Hawaii, had a 16-under 200 total on the Crosswater Club course.

Haas, the Senior PGA Championship winner in May, shot a 66. Tim Simpson (69) was 13 under, and Tom Watson (68), Joe Ozaki (64), Scott Hoch (66) and Mike Goodes (69) were another stroke back.

PGA EUROPEAN: At Stockholm, Sweden, Peter Hanson shot a 2-under 68 and took a two-stroke lead going into the final round of the SAS Masters.

Hanson has a 54-hole total of 10-under 200.

JUNIOR PGA: At Maineville, Ohio, Anthony Paolucci won the Junior PGA Championship, beating fellow Dallas player Jordan Spieth with a 6-foot birdie putt on the second hole of a playoff at TPC River's Bend.

Danielle Frasier of Encinitas, Calif., won the girls division by seven strokes.

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