SEOUL: Chinnarat Phadungsil of Thailand held a slim lead of 12-under-par part way through the third round of the CJ Invitational after play was suspended due to poor light yesterday.
Tournament host KJ Choi of Korea trailed closely behind Chinnarat after reaching the turn at 11-under-par to stay one shot back of the Thai, while Korea’s Kim Dae-hyun was in third place at 10-under-par through 10 holes.
With almost four hours of play lost due to heavy fog in the morning, 62 players will have to return today morning to complete their third round at 9:20 am with the final round scheduled to start at 10:20 am.
Chinnarat got off to a par-birdie-birdie start at the Haesley Nine Bridges Golf Club.
The 23-year-old parred the rest of the holes, but had a scare on the par-three eighth when his wayward drive found the greenside bunker. He recovered, however, before saving par with a 10-feet putt at the $750,000 event which is jointly sanctioned by the Asian Tour and Korean Golf Tour.
KJ is a very good player and he knows how to win tournaments. So it’s not over yet. But today, the most important thing was that I was very relaxed. I was not nervous and I just played my own game,” said Chinnarat.
Chinnarat is hopeful that his solid run will continue as he looks to rediscover the form that led him to three Asian Tour titles.
AFP
