By Andrew Both
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. (Reuters) – Louis Oosthuizen said he will need to sort out his swing woes to have a chance of winning the PGA Championship after battling to stay in contention in the third round on Saturday.
The South African was pleased to end the day only two strokes behind American leader Phil Mickelson after grinding out an even-par 72 in the most benign conditions of the week at Kiawah Island.
“That was probably the worst I’ve played in a while,” Oosthuizen said.
“Especially the first 10 holes, going along with Phil
hitting it beautifully and playing great, I was all over the
place.
“I could sense early on that I wasn’t on-song … so I was just sort of fighting to stay in it, and at the end there started judging the greens wrong and everything just fell apart.”
Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open champion who has finished runner-up in all four majors, will be in rarefied company if he wins on Sunday, joining double champion Gary Player (1962 and 1972) as the only South Africans to lift the big Wanamaker Trophy.
Nick Price from neighbouring Zimbabwe also won the event twice.
By slipping to third place, Oosthuizen avoided having to play with gallery favourite Phil Mickelson again in the final round on Sunday. Brooks Koepka will take on that challenge.
Oosthuizen instead will be in the penultimate pairing with Kevin Streelman.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of people following that (final) group,” Oosthuizen said.
“It’s nice when you do play in that last group because you sort of can look a bit more at what the group in front of you is doing, but it’s fine.
“All in all, two behind going into Sunday, I’ve got to take a lot of positives out of that (given) the way I was playing today.”
(Reporting by Andrew Both; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
