Jordan Spieth shoots Saturday 70 in Houston, on fringes of contention
Jordan Spieth is in purgatory at the Shell Houston Open, but that’s better than where he was on Friday.
Spieth shot 2-under 70 in the third round at the Golf Club of Houston to reach 6 under for the tournament and end the day five shots behind co-leaders Jamie Lovemark and Jim Herman, both searching for their first PGA Tour win and the final Masters invitation.
The 22-year-old said he battled swirling and switching wind patterns throughout much of the round.
“We had just some unreal wind flips on the first six, seven holes where … it was flipping back and forth,” he said. “We were on the wrong end of about six in a row, and it’s really tough to stay patient through that because I was putting good swings on it.”
It was a poor, short drive at the par-4 10th that led to a penalty stroke from the native area and resulted in a double bogey. He dropped one other shot on the day. Considering the conditions, a round under par was a good score. Only 13 players out of 81 on the Saturday tee shot performed better than Spieth on Saturday.
Spieth lamented his poor luck this week against the weather conditions. He’s hoping that tomorrow might be the start of a turn of luck that leads him through his first major title defense at the Masters.
“I’m playing really, really solid golf,” he said. “It just has yet to come through in a score of 6 or 7 under. Hopefully that means we’re saving them for tomorrow and next week. Certainly feel that my game is there.”
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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