Garrett Driver Leads by One Headed Into Final Round of Texas Amateur

Garrett Driver shot 67, a new competitive course record at Austin Country Club, to take a one shot lead headed into the final round of the 102nd Texas Amateur.  Making birdies at 1,3,4,7,9 he turned at 32, parred around to 14 where he bogied then added birdies at 15 and 18 to shoot 35 on the back nine and 67 for the round.   Driver is a fifth year senior at Sam Houston State.  See his swing sequence hitting his tee shot to the par 3 16th hole to about 15 feet.  (Click on the image to expand it.)   

Driver finished 2nd in the Texas Amateur in 2010 so he will be familiar with the situation and the pressure of the final round. Click here to  See his comments in the post round interview here.

Kelly Kraft out of Denton continued his steady play by posting his 3rd consecutive 71. He birdied 3, 7, 15, 16 and bogied 8, 17 and 18.   Seen here hitting his tee shot on 16 to two feet, he went on to make the birdie putt and move into a tie for the lead at five under par for the tournament.  

After a good tee shot on 17, Kraft went for the green in two and wound up in the left bunker. See the swing sequence at the left of Krafts's second shot to 17.   Leaving his 3rd in the bunker, he played his fourth shot out of the bunker onto the green and then two putted for a bogey six. 

On 18 he hit a 17 degree hybrid through the center of the fairway into the trees and had to chip out into the rough.  Playing his third over the canyon and out of the rough he managed to place the ball on the green about 50 feet from the pin.  The two putt was up over a slight ridge and then downhill to the pin.  His first putt ran by to about 7 feet but he managed to hole the putt for a bogey.    See the putt in this video.

Will Griffin out of San Antonio and Chris Forbes out of Katy are tied for 3rd at even par after three rounds.  Griffin posted 37-36=73 with birdies on 4, 5, and 15, to go with a double bogey on 7,  and bogies at  8 and 11.   Forbes posted even par 72 in the 3rd round with birdies on 9 and 13 to go with bogies on 1 and 8. 

As did Kraft, Griffin and Forbes tried to hit the 17th in two.  The second shots were approximately 230 yards to the middle of the green with a 20 mph wind quartering from the left to a back right pin located on a diagonal green with bunkers short, left, and right.    Griffin played first and hit his ball onto the green but it trickled into the fringe about halfway up the green.  Here is the swing sequence on the shot. (click on the image to expand it.      Next to play was Forbes. He also hit a good shot into the middle of the green only to see it run across the diagonal shaped green into a collection area.   Typical of the ACC Pete Dye design both players had hit good shots but they were slightly off on either the line or distance and then had to deal with difficult pitch shots up over a ridge to a back right hand pin with the grain running away from them.

  Shown here is Chris Forbes playing his lofted shot.  He played the shot beautifully landing it softly on the upper level short of the pin but with the downgrain roll the ball ended up about 8 feet past the pin.   Neither Griffin or Forbes were able to convert for birdies and had to settle for pars.  Pete Dye had struck again.   A reachable par 5 yielded two pars and a bogey to the leaders in the field. 

Several players are within 7 shots of the lead and with the hot and windy conditions coupled with the Pete Dye design that has yet to be played at it's maximum length, the final round should produce lots of opportunity for movement up or down the leaderboard.   

The low player in the field from Austin Country Club, Micheal Cooper posted a 3rd round 72, which included steady play that was a welcome relieve from the 2nd round ups and downs of a 46-32=78 round.  Michael proviede his comments on the third round and on the importance of hosting the tournament at Austin Country Club as part of the heritage Texas Amateur golf in his post round interview. (Click here to view)

See the full field scores below.

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