Adam Long hits his tee shot on the 15th hole at Corales Golf Club on Saturday.
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The leader played the U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club. It was hard. It was also helpful. “Big contrast from the U.S. Open to here, obviously,” said Adam Long, who tied for 13th. “That was just such a mental grind. It was just trying to hit a fairway. You’re probably going to miss it, and then you try to get it up on the green and try to make pars. Here, it’s a lot different landscape – it’s more of pretty open. It seems really wide open coming from Winged Foot.” Here are three things you need to know after Saturday’s third round of the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship at Corales Golf Club in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
Adam Long is leading
Long made 11 birdies last week. Over four rounds.
He had more than half of that total over an eight-hole stretch on Saturday.
Long birdied 7, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 14 on his way to an 8-under 64, a 17-under total and a two-stroke lead over Hudson Swafford. Mackenzie Hughes is three strokes back, Xinjun Zhang is four strokes behind, and Nate Lashley and Sean O’Hair are five strokes back.
Long finished with nine one-putts over his last 10 holes.
“It was nice when those days are like that where you’re just kind of feeling the putter and you’re just making putts,” Long said. “It was nice. I wasn’t thinking about a whole lot of things. I was just trying to make everything.”
Hudson Swafford is two back
Swafford, the second-round leader, made few mistakes. He made few birdies, too.
Swafford birdied the 4th and the 8th and eagled the 7th, then played the back nine at even-par for a 3-under 69.
“Had my chances, but nothing – never got ahead of myself, never really was frustrated, just kind of kept clicking along,” he said. It was a lot of good.”
Hughes started poorly and finished strongly.
He bogeyed the 1st, then birdied the 3rd, 4th, 7th, 15th, 16th and 17th for a 5-under 67. He was runner-up last year and is in third after three rounds this year.
“Yeah, yeah, I didn’t have much going today and I was watching Adam play awesome, so it was like getting run over by a semi, but hung in there,” he said.
Several are contending
In all, nine players are within six shots of the lead.
Zhang is four back after a 68; Lashley is five back after a 65, as is O’Hair after a 70; and Anirban Lahiri, Tyler McCumber, Luke List and Justin Suh are six back.
