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SOUTHAMPTON, Bermuda (AP) — Seamus Power is aware of the wind and Port Royal effectively sufficient to understand he’d higher do his scoring early. He did simply that Saturday, added just a few birdies late and had one other 6-under 65 to share the lead with Ben Griffin within the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
Power holed a 30-foot birdie putt on the daunting par-3 sixteenth and made a 12-foot birdie on the par-5 seventeenth to atone for his lone mistake, a double bogey on the par-3 thirteenth.
Griffin adopted the identical script in a powerful wind with three birdies to open his spherical. He stored his method beneath the wind on the 18th to five toes for birdie and a 66.
They have been at 18-under 195, two pictures away from Kevin Yu (67) and Aaron Baddeley (68).
Power at No. 48 is the highest-ranked participant at Port Royal.
The 35-year-old Irishman is not any stranger to windy circumstances and has performed the Bermuda Championship the previous couple of years.
“I knew I had to get birdies before 11,” Power mentioned.
He made 4 in a row early and was 6 beneath for the day till a missed inexperienced and unhealthy chips led to a double bogey on the thirteenth.
“One mistake. The wind drifted it a crazy amount,” Power mentioned. “But I was able to hang in there and it puts me in a good spot going to tomorrow.”
The sixteenth is the hardest tee as a result of the inexperienced is good of the ocean and the wind was ripping from left to proper.
“I don’t know how comfortable you get when you get to 16 and you’re having to aim your ball in the ocean,” Power mentioned with amusing. The shot completed pin-high on the fitting facet of the inexperienced to a left flag, and the putt crept within the low facet of the opening.
Power has one PGA Tour victory, the Barbasol Championship in Kentucky final 12 months. He would love nothing greater than a win for a powerful early begin to the PGA Tour and to guarantee his spot within the Masters.
For Griffin, much more as at stake.
He gave up on the sport just a few years in the past and was working as a mortgage mortgage officer when he was impressed taking part in in a member-guest, and the members put up cash for him to Monday qualify right into a Korn Ferry Tour occasion.
That was the beginning of child steps — making it via Korn Ferry Tour qualifying, after which final 12 months incomes his full card onto the PGA Tour.
A victory Sunday comes with a two-year exemption.
(*3*) Griffin mentioned. “When you are taking part in mini-tour occasions and also you’re attempting to grind for prime 10 simply to interrupt even, simply manage to pay for to possibly do a Monday qualifier, it is not essentially the simplest in phrases.
“Now that I have this little bit of freedom, I can go out there and just try to win golf tournaments.”
Ben Crane, whose final win was in 2014, began the third spherical with a one-shot lead and stumbled down the closing stretch with 4 bogeys in a five-hole stretch earlier than he birdied the final gap for a 73. He fell six pictures behind.
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