Henrik Stenson holds slim lead after Round 3 at Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard

Bryson DeChambeau wins the Rocket Mortgage Classic for his sixth PGA TOUR victory and fourth straight season with a win. RELATED: Final leaderboard Driver: Cobra King SpeedZone (7.5 degrees @5.5) Shaft: LA Golf BAD Prototype 75 TX Fairway wood: Cobra King Ltd (14.5 @12.5 degrees) Shaft: LA Golf BAD Prototype 75 TX Fairway wood: Cobra King SpeedZone Tour (14.5 degrees @14) Shaft: LA Golf BAD Prototype 85 TX Irons: Cobra King One Length Utility (4, 5), Cobra King Forged Tour One Length (6-PW) Shafts: LA Golf Rebar Proto Wedges: Artisan Prototype (50 @47, 55 @52, 60 @52) Shafts: LA Golf Rebar Proto shaft Putter: SIK Prototype Ball: Bridgestone Tour B X Grips: Jumbo Max Tour

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NAPA, Calif. — Justin Lower weathered the wind and birdied the 18th hole Saturday to take a one-shot lead into the final round of the season-opening Fortinet Championship. Lower shot a 3-under 69 to get to 13 under at Silverado Resort & Spa, with his fifth birdie of the round giving him his first career 54-hole lead in his 29th start on the PGA TOUR. He’s looking for his first TOUR victory. Defending champion Max Homa and Danny Willett were a shot back after even-par 72s. Byeong Hun An had a 71 to get to 11 under. While several players who went out early in the day posted low scores in good playing conditions, the course got much harder late in the day when the wind picked up to wreak havoc on the players. Willett took several minutes on the eighth green clearing off blowing leaves just before making a birdie putt that put him briefly in the lead at 13 under. Workers with leaf blowers came out on the next hole to keep the green clean but Willett made a double-bogey 7 after his approach shot flew past the green. There were few birdie chances available with players happy with pars late in the day. That led to a very condensed leaderboard with eight players within three shots of the lead headed into Sunday. An moved into a one-shot lead when he hit a solid tee shot on the par-3 15th came and then made a birdie from about 6 feet to get to 13 under. But he gave it back and more with a double bogey in the par-5 16th when his second shot got caught near the root of a tree. That opened the door for Lower, who put his second shot on the par-5 18th just off the green and then made the short birdie putt. It’s been quite a few weeks for Lower, who appeared to lose his TOUR card after three-putting the final hole of the Wyndham Championship for a bogey when he only needed a par to remain in he top 125. Lower found his way back into the top 125 and is taking advantage of it in the first tournament of the new season. Conditions aren’t expected to be much better in the final round, which has already been altered by an ominous forecast with rain and wind. The leaders will tee off several hours earlier than scheduled with the final round featuring threesomes off split tees. Davis Thompson and Harrison Endycott shot the low rounds of the day with 65s that left Harrison in a four-way tie for fifth place with Paul Haley II, Matt Kuchar and Adam Svensson. Endycott was a stroke behind in a four-way tie for ninth. Endycott the first player out on the course and played as a single in his first career tournament make the cut with a birdie on the the final hole of the second round. He overcame a broken driver early in that round and was happy to have all of his clubs available Saturday. “Definitely helps when you’ve got a driver in the bag after yesterday’s shenanigans with the cracked driver face,” he said. “This golf course is tough hitting 3-wood everywhere. So it was nice to get freed up, played some good golf today.” Haley, who had gone 3,315 days between appearances on the TOUR from the 2013 Wyndham Championship and the start of this tournament, was tied with Thompson in the group at 10 under after a 66.

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MELBOURNE, Australia – Marc Leishman has won four times on the PGA TOUR, but has yet to hoist a trophy of significance in his home country. He intends to rectify this hole in his resume this week. But the affable Australian and his partner Cameron Smith will have their work cut out for them at the ISPS Handa Melbourne World Cup of Golf, as 27 other teams are eyeing the same prize. With the fall portion of the FedExCup in the rearview, attention turns to the Southern Hemisphere for this week’s team competition. The Metropolitan Golf Club sits in the famed Sandbelt golf region of Melbourne and should present a great challenge. “I’ve won all around the world now and won some smaller events here in Australia, but winning a big event at home, apart from a major, that’s the next thing on the list,â€� Leishman said. “I’m really determined to obviously play really well here this week and try and win the World Cup with Cam. That would be huge.â€� Teams of two alternate between Foursomes and Fourball play, in much the same vein as the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Smith is a former winner in New Orleans (with Swede Jonas Blixt), so he has experienced success in the format. Coming after the local favorites are several teams of note. Fresh off his win at the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico, Matt Kuchar joins forces with Kyle Stanley as the United States tries to continue its dominance in the event. The U.S. has 24 World Cup wins, well ahead of Australia and South Africa with five each. “Certainly riding a high. Winning a tournament on the PGA TOUR is hard to do. When you do it, you’ve got a great buzz going, a great sense of confidence and hoping to keep it going,â€� Kuchar said. The Americans have a combined 10 PGA TOUR wins between them, and Kuchar is a former World Cup champion, joining Gary Woodland to win in 2011. Team England is certainly a passionate one with firebrands Tyrrell Hatton and Ian Poulter. Poulter has had success on the Melbourne Sandbelt before, winning the now-defunct Australian Masters in 2011. The chest-thumping Englishman lobbied Hatton to choose him as a partner given his love for Sandbelt golf. The iconic region is littered with courses with thoughtful designs that call for more than just bomb-and-gouge. The greens are built expertly into the topography and the bunkers have crisp vertical edges that also fit snugly into the fairways and putting surfaces. “Team events are pretty special. And when you look at the type of course that we’re playing this week, it’s easy to get very fired up to come and play golf,â€� Poulter said. “I get asked all the time when I play pro-ams all over the world, what are some of the favorite courses you’ve played on. I pretty much tell everybody, unless you’ve traveled down to the Sandbelt, you really haven’t experienced golf.â€� England is looking for its first win since Paul Casey and Luke Donald combined for the 2004 title. Defending champion Denmark returns the same duo as 2016, in-form Thorbjorn Olesen and veteran Soren Kjeldsen. With Kjeldsen’s accuracy and Olesen’s power, the Danes are confident they have the magic formula to go back-to-back on the Sandbelt, having won at Kingston Heath in 2016. “We’re quite opposite; most of the time I put it in the fairway,” Kjeldsen said. “I’ve got a solid game, whereas Thorbjorn has a flashy game; he has amazing stuff now and again.” Olesen bypassed picking up-and-coming star Lucas Bjerregaard, who won last month’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the European Tour, in favor of the winning combination. “We’re one of the better teams because we have a lot of confidence and we’ve proven we can do it,” Olesen said. Team China is looking to create history, as Haotong Li and Wu Ashun strive to better their runner-up finish in 2016. Not only do they want the World Cup trophy, but they want to state their case as a potential duo for the International team in next year’s Presidents Cup, which will also be held in Melbourne. “It would be very exciting to play a Presidents Cup together and would also be very good news in China, too, because a Chinese player has never played a Presidents Cup,â€� Ashun said. “So it’s a very good chance for me and Haotong to try to impress.â€� They’re not the only ones hoping to give International team captain Ernie Els something to ponder. Abraham Ancer leads the Mexican team fresh off a win at the Australian Open. Kiradech Aphibarnrat will look to overpower the course for team Thailand. Anirban Lahiri will lead team India, and his fellow 2017 Presidents Cup teammate Jhonattan Vegas will spearhead Venezuela. Then Byeong Hun An and former PLAYERS Champion Si Woo Kim make a formidable South Korean team. The battle for world supremacy is on.

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