The absurdly low scoring on the PGA Tour continued unabated on Saturday as Christiaan Bezuidenhout’s third-round seven-under-par 65 in The American Express in La Quinta, California moved him to 21-under-par but left him six shots off the lead.
An eagle, six birdies and a bogey put him in fourth place. The lead was held by amateur Nick Dunlap of the United States, who carded a jaw-dropping 12-under-par 60 to pull three shots clear of countryman Sam Burns in second. Another American, Justin Thomas, was in third on 23-under, and he remarked that he didn’t expect to be at 23-under but upstaged by a 20-year-old amateur.
Bezuidenhout was one clear of five players on 20-under in a share of fifth: Americans Eric Cole, JT Poston and Xander Schauffele, Koreans Si Woo Kim and Canada’s Adam Hadwin.
In an indication of how low the scoring is, the third-round cut fell at 13-under-par. Garrick Higgo was one of the unlucky ones to miss it at eight-under after a third round of two-under-par 70.
Erik van Rooyen made it to the final round with a three-under-par 69 in the third round lifting him to 14-under. He was 13 places down on the leaderboard in a share of 39th together with world number one Scottie Scheffler.
