Wachovia Championship: Third-Round Notebook  PGA TOUR Staff CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The third round of the Wachovia Championship was delayed for two hours due to lightning on Saturday. Players remained in their original pairings and all players began their rounds on the first hole. The last lightning delay on the PGA TOUR was earlier this year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard.  2006 Nationwide Tour Player of the Year Ken Duke is hanging with the big guns heading into the final day at Quail Hollow. (Richard Schultz/WireImage)
• Play was delayed at 6:30 p.m. with 11 players still on the course. The last suspension of play at the Wachovia Championship was in the final round in 2006. Play was delayed in the morning for 30 minutes due to lightning and later delayed for 1 hour and 22 minutes due to rain. • This marks the ninth tournament of the 2007 PGA TOUR season to have a weather-related delay. • Rory Sabbatini has been a leader or co-leader after 54-holes three times in his PGA TOUR career. He converted two of those three into wins at the 2006 Nissan Open and the 2003 FBR Capital Open. • Sabbatini's third-round 64 ties the tournament course record previously set by Kirk Triplett (2004) and Bo Van Pelt (2006). • Saturday's round marks the third time in 17 rounds at the Wachovia Championship that Sabbatini has carded a round in the 60s. His best finish is a T40 in 2003. • Tiger Woods has recorded 15 PGA TOUR victories in his career after trailing through 54 holes. His last come-from-behind win was earlier this year at the Buick Invitational when he began the day two shots behind Andrew Buckle and Brandt Snedeker and went on to win by two over Charles Howell III. • The Saturday pairing of Vijay Singh and Woods, Nos. 1-2 in the inaugural FedExCup standings, respectively, has combined for $121,096,256 in career earnings on the PGA TOUR. • 2006 Nationwide Tour Player of the Year Ken Duke continued his recent hot streak with a round of 68 on Saturday. Duke finds himself T5 heading into Sunday's final round and looking to record his fourth consecutive top-10 finish on the PGA TOUR. During his streak, Duke has recorded 12 of his past 14 rounds under par. • Trevor Immelman, who bogeyed the par-3 sixth to fall back to even par for the tournament, played his final 12 holes in 6 under par en route to his second 68 of the week. • Robert Garrigus, J.B. Holmes, and Sabbatini all shot 31 on Quail Hollow's opening nine on Saturday, which tied the week's low score on that side, originally set by Charlie Wi on Friday. The record low for the front nine is 30 and shared by Kirk Triplett (2004), Trevor Immelman (2006), and Bill Haas (2006). • Rory Sabbatini holed his approach shot to the par-4 first from 80 yards to begin his round on Saturday. This is only the second eagle recorded at the opening hole in the five-year history of the Wachovia Championship. Arron Oberholser's eagle at the par-4 third was the second in the tournament's history as well. • 2004 Wachovia Championship winner Joey Sindelar's round of 70 is his lowest third-round score of the 2007 season.
• As always, players who putt well usually score. Sabbatini, Steve Stricker, and Immelman were all in the top 5 on the day for Putting Average as well as the top 10 in the tournament. Of the threesome, Immelman has the best average with 1.575, a far departure from his 2007 Putting Average of 1.863 (178th on TOUR). • South Africa is well represented in birdies this week as Immelman (19) and Sabbatini (18) lead the field in total birdies through three rounds. • Robert Garrigus set the early standard with a round of 67 on Saturday. This ties Garrigus' career low for a PGA TOUR third round. He carded a 67 in the third round of the Sony Open in Hawaii earlier this year. • Saturday's scoring average of 71.494 marks the lowest average in Wachovia Championship history as well as the third instance where the Quail Hollow Club played to an average under par (2006, Round 3, 71.753; 2004, Round 3, 71.806). • Players are given a break with the docile par-5 15th, which played as the easiest hole on Saturday, before tackling Quail Hollow's fearsome final three holes, which all ranked in the top 5 in difficulty in the third round. • After spending one day at fourth hardest, the daunting par-4 18th hole at Quail Hollow bounced back to play as the most difficult hole on both Friday and Saturday with averages of 4.562 and 4.494, respectively. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
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