Players Championship: Paul Casey one off lead at TPC Sawgrass after three rounds

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Paul Casey
Casey completed joint fifth at final yr’s Players Championship
-9 A Lahiri (Ind); -8 P Casey (Eng), S Munoz (Col), D Ghim (US), S Burns (US)
Selected: -7 C Smith (Aus), T Hoge (US); -6 R Knox (Sco), S Lowry (Ire); -5 T Fleetwood (Eng); -4 T Hatton (Eng), V Hovland (Nor)

England’s Paul Casey will begin the ultimate spherical of the Players Championship one shot off the lead after finishing a strong three-under-par 69 on Monday.

Casey, who resumed on the tenth at 08:00 (12:00 GMT), holed a 35-foot birdie putt on the seventeenth as he improved his rating to eight below at TPC Sawgrass.

India’s Anirban Lahiri, ranked 322 on this planet, leads after carding a 67.

Scotland’s Russell Knox and Ireland’s Shane Lowry, who aced the par-three seventeenth on Sunday, are at six below.

Norway’s Viktor Hovland hit the second hole-in-one of the third spherical with an ideal shot on the par-three eighth as he moved to 4 below.

A complete of 25 gamers are inside 5 photographs of the lead because the event, which was massively disrupted by 5 inches of rain, thunderstorms and powerful winds over the primary three days, seems to be set to succeed in an thrilling conclusion.

No English participant has ever received the PGA Tour’s flagship occasion, which boasts the richest prize in golf with $3.6m (£2.75m) for the winner from a $20m (£15.31m) prize fund.

But Casey has put himself in a wonderful place to problem for the title. After opening his event with a triple bogey, and in addition dropping a shot on his third gap, the world quantity 27 performed bogey-free golf for the following 44 holes.

“My sport plan after making triple on Thursday was truly [to] simply play smart golf and get it in,” he stated. “It was fairways and greens and attempt to slowly claw again the photographs I gave away so shortly. That plan has not likely modified.”

The 44-year-old accepted that he has “an excellent alternative” to choose up what could be the largest win of his profession.

“I do know you guys would say it is not a star-studded leaderboard, it is not the same old suspects, however at each single PGA Tour occasion, the extent of golf is unbelievable,” he informed reporters.

Casey is joint second with Colombia’s Sebastian Munoz and Americans Sam Burns and Doug Ghim.

England’s Tommy Fleetwood, who shared the lead after spherical one, bogeyed the final to drop into the group on 5 below.

Scotland’s Knox has quietly gone about his enterprise this week and crept up the leaderboard with 4 birdies on his again 9 in a bogey-free 68 to sit down three off the lead.

He has loads of assist out right here this week given he lives a number of miles from TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonville and went to the town’s college.

Defending champion Justin Thomas bogeyed two of his last three holes to shut on three below, the identical whole as world quantity one Jon Rahm.

The last spherical is already below method and BBC Sport can have reside textual content protection from 16:30 BST, with Casey set to tee off at 16:50.

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