Westwood in contention after eventful round at British Masters
Saturday, 27 Sep 2008 20:24
Lee Westwood in contention to defend his title
Defending champion Lee Westwood is just one shot of the lead in the British Masters at the Belfry after incurring an eventful third day.
Westwood, who was joint leader after the second round, had to wait until 1605 BST to get his third round started as fog played havoc with the order of play. Westwood was forced to start his round from the tenth hole but bogeyed the first three holes. He managed to eagle the 17th to stay close to the leaders.
Michael Campbell, Mikael Lundberg and Alejandro Canizares were tied for the lead at seven-under-par, but none of them were able to complete their third rounds. Campbell earned four birdies in his 14 holes, while Lundberg hit seven birdies and two bogeys from the same number of holes. Canizares still has eight holes of his round to play.
South African Charl Schwartzel, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, Jeev Milkha Singh and Ross Fisher are all on six-under-par alongside Westwood.
A number of players completed their second round in the morning and only 24 players managed to finish their third rounds today. Event promoter Andrew Chandler and broadcasters the BBC wanted a "shotgun" start – which would have meant all the players started simultaneously, using all the holes on the course. But this was turned down by European Tour officials.
"It just does not happen except in pro-ams. In serious tournament golf, no," said Tour chief referee John Paramor. "It's very difficult for the public to understand where the players are and there is no correlation between where they are and how many holes to go.
"The score means nothing until everybody is finished. And we are pretty confident that players would not like to be drawn to start on certain holes."