Lindell continued his strong performance – "Definitely the best day so far"
Oliver Lindell played a 69 (-2) in the Danish Golf Championship on Saturday and is cautiously climbing the leaderboard day by day. There was more to be had, but the overall score of -5 is currently enough to share 14th place. In golf, the score does not necessarily tell the whole story of what happened during the 18 holes. Lindell's putting was clearly the best of the week, and there was no doubt about that in his own mind either.
"Definitely the best day so far. The last couple of holes were challenging today. The opening shot on the 17th was good, but it rolled 20 centimetres onto the rough, which is where the final round began. I took a small risk when I hit from the rough onto the green over the water, but these are the differences when the card has not yet been confirmed. On the last hole, I hit my worst drive of the week, which ended up in the bushes, but I managed to fight my way back to par with a gap shot, which left me with a good feeling," Lindell said.
Lindell's round was particularly flawless on the front nine. He hit eight greens in nine holes, which meant that birdie opportunities came thick and fast. There were no missed shots with the putter today, but the putts just didn't find the bottom of the cup.
"I had several putts from 8-10 metres today that would have dropped right in the middle. The problem all week has been that they don't go in, they just stop at the lip. Of course, I try to sink every putt, but it's difficult to turn it around. Only one of the putts from the front nine fell from further away, even though the game was really good throughout the front nine."
The battle on the last few holes, which kept the score two under par, was important for tomorrow, as a top 5 finish was still three strokes away. On a challenging back nine, even a single mistake can easily cost a few strokes. The round took almost two hours less than the days played in groups of three. This suits the Porvoo native, who plays at a brisk pace. Today, however, he found a calmer tempo for his swing.
"On the back nine, you can't afford to make a single bad shot, whereas on the front nine you can still get away with it. It was a good performance in the sense that we stayed within striking distance of the top ten, and tomorrow we'll just go for the best score of the week. I really like playing in groups of two. Yesterday was a difficult day and my shots were a bit all over the place, so my expectations weren't very high. I slowed down my swing during the warm-up, as I've been a bit too hasty and my tempo too fast. I played well today, except for the 17th hole," said the Finn.
Rasmus Højgaard (-13) is still in the lead by one stroke. The other Finnish player to make the cut, Sami Välimäki, is tied with Lindell at -5.
Lindell will tee off for his final round at 12:25 p.m. Finnish time, together with Sweden's Niklas Lemke.