Softened by an inch of rainwater from an early morning thunderstorm that swept through New Orleans, the TPC of Louisiana rarely has been less imposing than it was Saturday.<\/p>\n
With the wind stifled, the greens holding and the players allowed to lift, clean and place their balls, the course was laid bare for the field of 35 two-man teams in the third round of the Zurich Classic<\/a>. And no team took advantage of the optimal conditions more than Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick<\/a>.<\/p>\n Feeding off each other\u2019s aggressive play during the best-ball format, the Fitzpatrick brothers shredded the course for 13 birdies and an eagle en route to a tournament-record score of 15-under 57 to take a commanding four-stroke lead into Sunday\u2019s final round.<\/p>\n \u201cAmazing day,\u201d said Matt Fitzpatrick, after sharing a celebratory hug with his father, Russell, outside the scorer\u2019s tent. \u201cIt probably hasn\u2019t sunk in yet how well we played. It was just hole after hole.\u201d<\/p>\n The Englishmen\u2019s three-round score of 30-under 186 is also a record since the tournament went to a team format in 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaying alongside my brother, who happens also to be one of the best players in the world, is pretty fun,\u201d said Alex, who is playing under a sponsor\u2019s exemption. \u201cWhen he’s playing well, it’s pretty cool to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n Two teams are four shots back at 26 under, including the pairing of Alex Smalley and Hayden Springer, who entered Saturday\u2019s round with a one-stroke lead. Davis Thompson and Austin Eckroat are also at 26-under 190. But the Fitzpatrick team will enter Sunday\u2019s alternate-shot competition as the prohibitive favorites, especially after posting a round of 7-under 65 during alternate-shot play Friday.<\/p>\n Play begins Sunday at 9:30 a.m. The leaders tee off at 12:50 p.m.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we can take the governor switch off (Sunday),\u201d Smalley said. \u201cLike Tiger (Woods) said, he wanted to be aggressive to conservative targets, so I think we’ll pick out good targets (Sunday) and try to hit the best shots that we can.\u201d<\/p>\n While Zach Bauchou delivered the shot of the day with a hole-in-one on No. 3, Matt Fitzpatrick produced perhaps the most pivotal shot on the 492-yard, par-4 No. 12. His 284-yard drive left him 210 yards from the green, and he stuck a 5-iron approach shot within 5 feet of the hole. His birdie putt gave the Fitzpatricks the outright lead for the first time in the tournament and fueled a furious finish that saw them birdie five of the final six holes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an amazing day out there,\u201d Alex said. \u201cWe got to like (hole No.) 14, and it was like, yeah, we\u2019re going back to Mr. B\u2019s (Bistro). We’ll probably stick with what we did the other night.\u201d<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t a one-man show either. Matt, the world\u2019s No. 3-ranked player, carded six birdies and an eagle at No. 7, but Alex, who is playing on a sponsor\u2019s exemption, had seven birdies of his own.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was brilliant today,\u201d Matt said of Alex. \u201c\u2026 I felt like we were almost one player in a way. I was helping him on the greens. He was giving me the opportunity to be aggressive into the pins and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n The heavy storms forced tournament officials to delay tee times by a couple of hours Saturday morning. Because of the soggy playing conditions, preferred lie rules were implemented, allowing players to clean, lift and place their balls before shots.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very gettable out there,\u201d Matt Fitzpatrick said. \u201cIf you drive the ball (well), you can be aggressive to these pins. The greens are soft, and they’re pure, as well, so you can make putts and be aggressive. The score was definitely there, and obviously it’s nice for us to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Alex said he was awakened by lightning at 7 a.m. and thought play might get canceled because the storm was so intense.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I didn’t know if we were going to play or not when I looked outside,\u201d he said. \u201cBut coming out here and it being soft, especially in the four-ball format, you knew you were going to have some opportunities. I certainly didn’t think we would have the score we have. We definitely exceeded our expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n Bauchou produced the shot of the day when he carded a hole-in-one on the 212-yard, par-3 No. 3 to briefly put his team in the lead early in the round. It was only the ninth hole-in-one since the tournament went to a team format in 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Softened by an inch of rainwater from an early morning thunderstorm that swept through New Orleans, the TPC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21980,307,51],"class_list":{"0":"post-55688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-zurich","8":"tag-hardwall","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-zurich"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116468475771951498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}