Choi, Johnson share Stockholm top spot
STOCKHOLM—K.J. Choi of South Korea and Richard Johnson of Sweden share the lead at the Scandinavian Masters after the third round Saturday, and new British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen blew a chance to join them.
Cheered on by a large home crowd, Johnson mixed four birdies with two bogeys in shooting 70 for a total of 10-under 206.
Choi shot three birdies and two bogeys in the rainy and windy conditions at Bro Hof Slott in a 1-under 71 round.
Oosthuizen could have made it a three-way tie for the lead, but he bogeyed his final hole to end on a 70 and at 9 under.
“I had a great time today and my game felt OK. I wasn’t really nervous at all today so it worked out really nice,” Johnson said.
However, he added that the conditions made play tough.
“The winds are so strong that it was almost pushing the ball down a little bit sometimes,” he said. “It was very difficult.”
Choi hit water at the 13th, where he opted to wade into the water to take a shot at a difficult ball. He said afterward that it was the the first time he had done that during a golf tournament.
“It was very cold,” Choi said.
Oosthuizen—who could become the first player to follow a British Open victory with a European Tour win a week later—said he was disappointed with his score but was aiming to climb past the others in the final round on Sunday.
“I made two thinking errors on the course and it cost me two bogeys,” he said.
Mark Brown of New Zealand had the best score of the day with a 67 and shares fourth place with Argentina’s Rafa Echenique at 209.
Meanwhile, American Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin will talk to Tiger Woods at next month’s US PGA Championship to learn whether he wants to be in his team at Celtic Manor in Wales in October.
Woods lies seventh in the points table that will provide eight automatic members for the United States against Europe.
At the Masters, when asked about the Ryder Cup, Woods simply said: “Would I like to play in it? If I qualify.”
