Lindell racked up seven birdies – two double bogeys spoiled a superb round
Oliver Lindell put in his best all-round performance of the week in Abu Dhabi, but two double bogeys took a heavy toll on his score. The third round began with his weakest shot of the day – and indeed of the whole week. Just as the clock ran out, he found himself in an unplayable lie, from which he had to settle for a double bogey.
“I had a good warm-up this morning, and I was fully prepared for things to go well today and intended to be more aggressive off the tee. My first drive went off the ‘map’ to the right into the rough, from where I had to take a drop almost back on the driving range. After that, I missed a putt by just over a metre, and the day got off to a start with a double bogey. My thoughts quickly turned rather gloomy,” said Lindell, reflecting on what was arguably the most challenging start to a round in his career.
After that, we saw a steady performance, partly due to the driver being sidelined for the remainder of the round. Tee shots hit with a mini-driver and a long iron found the fairway time and time again, or landed in its immediate vicinity. His iron play was even more precise than on previous days, and he didn’t even need particularly long putts to secure seven birdies. His putting remained consistently strong, and the putt on the first hole was the shortest miss of the day. A round of -3 brings the total to -8, securing a T29 position. His position on the leaderboard remained largely unchanged.
“After the opening hole, I decided I wouldn’t hit any more drives, and I played well with my mini-driver for the rest of the day. My tee shot on the 12th hole veered to the left and ended up in the one place you mustn’t hit on that hole (a deep fairway bunker). My escape shot from the bunker landed on the left-hand edge of the fairway, leaving me with a difficult downhill wedge shot, which spun off the green. From there, I putted three times and ended up with my second double bogey of the day,” Lindell lamented.
After his second double bogey of the day, Lindell was even sarcastically amused. It seemed that the week’s bogeys had been used up on the first day, just as promised. The double bogeys, however, took a far heavier toll on his game, but the Porvoo native responded by hitting his next approach shots one after the other within a metre of the flag.
“A good way to round off the round, and a decent result to add to the tally. There’s still a chance to secure an important top-10 finish tomorrow.”
Compared with yesterday, he capitalised on his par-5s by half as much, but this was due to the challenging layouts around the greens. Lindell once again managed to hit his second shots towards the green on all four par-5s, and with a bit more luck on each of them, there would have been a decent chance of an eagle putt.
“I was in good form with my par-5s again today. I hit some good second shots, but on three occasions the ball bounced into the trickiest possible spots, from which I managed to secure just one birdie with a two-putt. All in all, it was a promising day, and tomorrow we’ll play a bit more cautiously from the tee right from the start. If I can keep playing like this, a low round is definitely within reach,” said Lindell.
Spain’s Jon Rahm has risen to the top of a closely contested field with a score of -18. Lindell is almost certain to play the final round alongside at least Rahm’s compatriot, Eugenio Chacarra, who leads the Race to Dubai rankings.