Iles jumps into Nationwide lead in Utah
Nationwide Tour | 2010 Utah Championship | Round Three | 12 Sep 2010
New Zealand golfer Brad Iles has kept his PGA Tour dream alive as he takes a one shot lead into tomorrow’s final round of the Utah Championship.
The Tauranga professional fired a remarkable eight under par 63 in the third round at Willow Creek Country Club in Sandy today to jump into the lead of the Nationwide Tour event after 54 holes on 15-under par.
Iles is currently in 63rd place on the PGA’s Nationwide Tour on US$77,048 and needs to potentially double that figure to grab a spot in the top 25 at year’s end who will automatically earn their playing rights on next year’s PGA Tour.
There’s $US99,000 for the winner’s share at Utah so he has the opportunity to earn a sizeable cheque or better still, move into the winner’s circle for the first time since joining the Nationwide Tour in 2008.
Iles started and finished in sensational fashion today, opening with five birdies in the first seven holes before dropping a shot on the 8th. He steadied with six straight pars before unleashing four straight birdies to set the low round of the tournament to date.
He is one shot clear of Michael Putnam (USA) and four clear of Jeff Gove (USA) and Jhonattan Vegas (Venezuela).
There are still six tournaments remaining in the tour season before the year-ending Nationwide Championship.
New Zealand’s Phil Tataurangi missed the cut while across the Atlantic Danny Lee shot a seven-over par 77 to drop to a share of 77th place after three rounds of the KLM Open in The Netherlands. He made the cut on one-under par but suffered two double bogeys and five bogeys in his round today.
Source – NZGA
