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KAPALUA, HAWAII (TICKER) -- Mike Weir ended Saturday where he started it, in the lead at the Mercedes-Benz Championship.
Weir fired a 5-under-par 68 in the third round of the season-opening $5.5 million event and has a one-shot lead.
At 13-under 206, the Canadian leads Nick Watney by one shot. Daniel Chopra and Jonathan Byrd are tied for third at 11-under.
Weir played in an all-Canadian pairing with Stephen Ames and found
himself tied for the lead with Ames for much of the round. Weir went
back in front when Ames bogeyed the 10th and he added birdies at Nos.
12, 14 and 18 coming in.
Ames was a shot back to start the day and is in fifth at 10-under 209 after signing for a 3-under 70.
The winner of the 2003 Masters, Weir entered the round with a one-shot
lead and birdied the fifth and ninth. Ames wasted no time grabbing a
share of the lead with a birdie at the first. He matched Weir with
birdies at Nos. 5 and 9 on the Plantation Course at Kapalua, which is
the lone par-73 layout on the PGA Tour.
Weir could have put more distance between himself and the field with
makeable birdie putts at 15 and 16 but he grazed the lip on both. He
did close with a birdie at 18 but that just put him right back where he
started the day.
"You obviously want to get as low as you can because it was scorable
for a lot of guys," Weir said. "I saw the board and there were a lot of
good scores so I wanted to keep making birdies."
After his bogey at 10, Ames was unable to make another birdie until 18
but there were plenty of others ready to step in and put pressure on
Weir.
Watney had six birdies in a 67 that included consecutive birdies to
close the round. Chopra also carded a 67 while Jim Furyk, Justin
Leonard, Brandt Snedeker and Steve Stricker are all at 9-under 210.
"I played exactly the same way I played the first day, pretty much,"
Chopra said. "That was my goal, just eliminate the mistakes that I made
over the previous rounds in certain areas, and for the most part I was
able to do that.
"Every time I made a mistake this week it felt like it was a stupid
mistake, and it was a silly bogey. That was my main goal today, was
just to eliminate those."
The winner here in 2001, Furyk carded his first birdie at No. 5 and
made the turn at 2-under for the round. He got hot coming in, firing
five birdies on the back nine, including a run of three straight
starting at No. 14 and a birdie at 18 to cap his round.
"I had kind of a slow start. I really struggled with my putter early,
believe it or not," Furyk said. "I had a lot of - a ton of
opportunities to make birdie on the front nine and I was able to make
two putts at five and eight, but I left - I missed a little four-footer
at nine and missed a bunch of short ones, some very, very makeable
putts.
"I actually did make some good strokes on the back nine and got to see
some putts go in and really turned it around. When I started that nine
I was pretty far back. And to go out there and shoot 5-under on the
back, all of a sudden I'm within one right now and I'll probably be
within three or four by the end of the day. So from way back to kind of
in the thick of things tomorrow."
Defending champion Vijay Singh shot 67 and is at 8-under 211 along with 2007 U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera and Chad Campbell.
"I played very well. It's probably the worst I could have shot," Singh
said. "I could have made four other birdies on the front side that I
missed, but it was kind of getting a little frustrating there. But the
golf swing is feeling really, really good, so that's a plus."
First prize is $1.1 million, but with 11 players within five shots, it is still definitely up for grabs.
"There a lot of guys behind me with a lot of experience," Weir said.
"I'm sure I'm going to have to shoot 5-, 6-, 7-under. I'm sure I'm
going to have to shoot somewhere in that range to pull this thing out."
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