Plenty for Ogilvy to smile about
KAPALUA, Hawaii - Geoff Ogilvy ran off 3 straight birdies on the back nine and shot an 8-under 65 on Saturday to make the rest of the winners-only field at the Mercedes-Benz Championship feel as though they were playing for second.
The wind switched directions, making Kapalua play entirely different. What didn't change was the guy atop the leaderboard.
Leading by 1 shot to start the third round, Ogilvy played bogey-free for the second time in three rounds and wound up with a 6-shot lead over Justin Leonard and D.J. Trahan as he tries to win the PGA Tour's season-opening event.
Leonard made 8 birdies over his final 14 holes on his way to a 65, the kind of round he figured would give him a chance to win. But he never had a good look at the leaderboard until he walked onto the 18th green and saw that Ogilvy was at 19 under.
"It was a little deflating, to say the least," Leonard said.
Trahan was 1 shot behind Ogilvy and simply couldn't keep up and shot a 70.
About the only thing Ogilvy did wrong was fail to convert 3 reasonable birdie chances on the closing holes, including the 18th, the only par 5 he failed to birdie in the third round.