Uresti only player under par after 54 holes in Livermore Valley  PGA TOUR Staff LIVERMORE, Calif. -- As the only player below par trough three rounds, Omar Uresti must be feeling like a lonely -- but happy -- man atop the leaderboard at the Nationwide Tour's $625,000 Livermore Valley Wine Country Championship.  Omar Uresti cheered a chip-in on Saturday. (Stan Badz/PGA TOUR/WireImage)
Despite firing a 2-over-par 74 -- including a double bogey on the opening hole -- Uresti held off his challengers on Saturday and actually increased his lead to four strokes with just 18 holes remaining. "It was tough out there," said Uresti, a 38-year-old native of Austin, Texas. "It was a crazy day. To start off with a double and then stay right there ... I feel pretty good about that. Today was a patient day. You just go out there and keep grinding." Perhaps drawing from his prowess from playing in his wind-swept state of Texas, Uresti remained in the driver's seat thanks to another solid ball-striking round, hitting 9 of 14 fairways and 12 of 18 greens in regulation. "Today has really been the only windy day," said Uresti, winner of the 1994 Shreveport Open. "The ability to keep it low is an advantage out here." Uresti will have plenty of competition during Sunday's final round, including a pair of players who have already won this season. Chitimacha Louisiana Open champion Skip Kendall fired a third consecutive even-par 72 and is four back, while Movistar Panama Championship victor Miguel Carballo is lurking six shots back. "When you have greens like your garage floor it gets pretty tough," said Kendall, who still needed just 28 putts on Saturday. "It is tough and playing really difficult ... a 72 is a pretty good score." Others in the hunt include Australian sensation Jason Day, who posted the round of the day with a 4-under 68 to move to even-par 216. A 19-year-old prodigy of Queensland, Australia, Day will enter the final round seeking his first professional victory in a PGA TOUR-sponsored event. He made five cuts in seven starts on TOUR a year ago, with a T11 finish at the Reno-Tahoe Open his best outing. In two career starts this year on the Nationwide Tour, a T6 at the HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship is his best finish. "Honestly, I thought I needed to shot 68 today," said Day. "I knew if I got that I would be in good shape. The course is playing tough, very tough. I think there will be several scores over par. The first two days I struggled on the greens. I hit the ball great and did the same today but I made some putts and set myself up. That is the difference ... the putts went in today as opposed to the first two days." Kendall and Day are joined at even-par 216 by Arjun Atwal (who equaled the day's best round with a 68), Mario Tiziani (70) and Gary Christian (72). Extremely fast, firm and windy conditions at The Course at Wente Vineyards -- a par-72 layout just east of San Francisco -- continue to play havoc with the 61 remaining players at the fifth event of the season. The course -- which ranked as the most difficult on Tour a year ago -- played to an average of 74.918 Saturday, bringing the cumulative average for the week to a lofty 75.112. "I've never played in a U.S. Open, but I can imagine it is just like this," said Christian. "You just try and do whatever you can to shoot whatever you can." Third-Round News & Notes: The Nationwide Tour has had just one player win a tournament with an over-par score -- Roger Salazar (+3) at the 1991 South Texas Open ... Jason Day and Arjun Atwal were the only players with bogey-free rounds on Saturday ... Skip Kendall leads the field in fairways hit in regulation (34 of 42) and is tied for second in greens in regulation (41 of 54) ... The toughest hole during the third round was the par-4 first hole with a 4.557 average. The par-5 15th hole ranked the easiest at 4.590 ... A total of nine players posted sub-72 rounds on Saturday, bringing the total for the week to just 50 ... The Nationwide Tour has seen two 54-hole leaders go on to win this year, including Scott Sterling at the Jacob's Creek Open Championship and Skip Kendall at the Chitimacha Louisiana Open. Last year, Jeff Quinney entered the final round of the Livermore Valley Wine Country Championship with a two-shot lead over Tripp Isenhour and Paul Sheehan, with Isenhour eventually winning the inaugural tournament by three shots. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
PGATOUR.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network