LIV Golf Hong Kong: Ancer opens up 5-shot lead despite not chasing perfection, will have Australian Open in mind in title bid
- Abraham Ancer fires an eight-under-par 62 to move to 15 under at Hong Kong Golf Club
- Teammate Eugenio Chacarra and Harold Varner III his nearest challengers heading into final round
Abraham Ancer said he was not seeking perfection when he arrived in Hong Kong, but he can have few complaints about his golf over the first two days.
An eight-under-par 62 on Saturday took the Fireballs GC captain to 15 under for the LIV Golf tournament, and a five-shot lead heading into the final round.
And in many ways “trying not to be perfect” has resulted in getting close to the opposite. The Mexican hit 18 greens in regulation on Saturday, has missed just four fairways over 36 holes, and is bogey free so far.
The same cannot be said of his rivals, who all dropped away during the course of the day. Overnight co-leader Dean Burmester turned in a one-under 69 to drop into a tie for seventh on eight under.
Matt Jones, meanwhile, was within three shots on 11 under standing on the 16th tee alongside Ancer, and promptly went double bogey, birdie, double bogey on his way home to finish eight under overall.
Harold Varner III and Ancer’s teammate Eugenio Chacarra are now the nearest challengers on 10 under, while Cam Smith, Henrik Stenson and Jon Rahm are a shot further back.
Ancer has been in this position before. He took a five-shot lead into the 2018 Australian Open, and won by the same margin.
“I’m going to be thinking a lot of the Australian Open,” Ancer said. “Going into the final round I had a five-shot lead, and I was not thinking about that, I was just going about my routine and staying in the moment and felt like I was chasing somebody, felt like I needed to make some birdies.
“Obviously I’m not going to play super aggressive. This is a golf course where you have to be in the fairway and position yourself. That’s going to be my mentality. I’m not going to be thinking about the lead or where I’m at, just doing the same thing I’ve been doing these two days.”
Given his scoring, Ancer made a relatively sedate start, reaching the turn at three under, but a lengthy birdie putt on 11 from “somewhere in the range of 60ft” kick-started a run of five birdies in six holes.
There were chances too at 17 and 18, the last of which slipped past the left edge by a whisker. Still, the closing hole had already claimed Rahm and Jones as one of its many victims over the two days, and Ancer said he wasn’t “too mad about it”.
Hong Kong Golf Club’s signature par-4 has seen some dramatic finishes over the years, with Rory McIlroy’s escape from the trees on the left in 2008 among the most famous.
A perfect tee shot either leaves the ball sitting on the top tier of the fairway, before it dies down towards the pond that protects the green on the right, or runs down to the bottom tier leaving a wedge into the pin.
“I think it’s a phenomenal finishing hole with the wind in and out of the left and being a little cool,” Ancer said. “You’ve got to hit a tremendous tee shot, a really good second shot, and obviously if you want to make birdie, you’ve got to hit a good putt.
“I feel like I did that. My second shot was maybe a little bit farther right than I wanted to, but with that pin being so tucked to the left, you cannot miss on the left side. I was happy where it ended up, and I felt like that would have been a bonus if it went in. I hit a really good putt, and it just went barely around the hole.”
Ancer and Chacarra helped propel their side to the top of the team standings on 28 under, with Ripper GC three shots further back.
