Shane Lowry is six shots off the lead heading into the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am after a battling 67 kept his hopes of a first individual title since 2022 alive.
Lowry lies in a share of 11th place on thirteen-under and he will be looking to hunt down Akshay Bhatia who carded a fine 68 to lead by two from Collin Morikawa, Sepp Straka and Jake Knapp on 19-under.
The Offaly man made another quick start at Pebble with three straight birdies to open his round. He slowed briefly with dropped shots on the 5th and 9th either side of a birdie on the iconic par-3 7th where he threatened another hole in one.
The 2019 Open champion finished with a flourish to keep himself at least on the periphery with birdies on 13, 15 and 18.
With some poor weather expected on the final day, last year’s runner-up will feel confident that he can still mount a challenge.
One man whose challenge looks like it has been extinguished is Rory McIlroy who once again let another quick start slip away as he carded two 7s as his good, bad and the ugly week continued.
The defending champion opened with birdies on the 2nd and 3rd but he triple bogeyed the par-4 4th when he drove over a cliff when attempting to find the 324-yard green.
As ever, the five-time major winner bounced back with back to back birdies before dropping a shot on the 10th.
His title hopes were still alive when he birdied the 14th and 15th but after driving out of bounds and three-putting the 18th he closed with a double bogey and had to settle for a 72 for a nine-under total which leaves him ten adrift.
At the top, Bhatia looked flawless as he turned in 30 with six birdies including four in a row from the 4th but bogeys on 12 and 17 have given the field hope.
“Yeah, it was great to start the day. It was kind of blowing perfect, say 10 to 15. Similar direction we had in the practice round. I mean, we were hitting all a bunch of different shots just for fun and actually to live it the last couple holes was pretty challenging.
“So all in all, yeah, weird day. Like felt like I lost some ground towards the end but then I realized, like dude, it just played so much harder for some of the guys that were in some of the last tee times.”
World number one Scottie Scheffler is eight behind after a 67 as he looks for his 18th top-10 finish on the spin.
“I mean, I think 17 straight top-10s is a good result from a lot of consistent play,” said Scheffler, who was tied for 22nd.
“Outside of that, I could not care any less.”
As for catching the leader, Scheffler said, “I mean, I don’t want to rule anything out for myself. You never want to limit yourself.
“I’d obviously like to be in a better position on the leaderboard. But yeah, with crazy weather, crazy things can happen, and we’ll see what I can do tomorrow.”
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