Star-studded Saturday at the RBC Canadian Open

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SANDWICH, England – They call him King Louis but of late he’s been more of a prince. Come Sunday at The 149th Open Championship, Louis Oosthuizen has the chance to earn the title once more, fittingly at Royal St. George’s, where he takes a one-shot lead into the final round. Legend has it that Saint George tamed and slayed a dragon. Oosthuizen’s proverbial dragon is his near misses. Since winning the 2010 Open at St. Andrews, Oosthuizen has finished second in six majors and THE PLAYERS Championship without winning another PGA TOUR event. Two of those close calls happened in the last two majors – the PGA Championship in May and the U.S. Open in June. On both of those occasions, poor shots into hazards late in the championship proved very costly. But he won’t let those scars affect his fight. “Finishing second isn’t great, so I will play my heart out tomorrow and see if I can lift the Claret Jug again,” Oosthuizen said. “You’re not going to do something silly with taking the impossible shot on, but if there is opportunity to be more aggressive when you need to, you’ve got to do it if you want a win a championship.” A third round 1-under 69 moved the South African to 12 under for the week, his third straight lead. Open debutant Collin Morikawa (68) is just a shot behind with 2017 Open Champion Jordan Spieth (69) is third at 9 under. Corey Conners (66) and Scottie Scheffler (69) may have dragon slaying ideas of their own starting four back while Jon Rahm is not out the running just yet at seven under. That’s plenty more dragons to slay for Oosthuizen. “All of us are just human to think of lifting the trophy, and that’s going to be in your mind. But I think you just need to know it and how to handle it,” he said. “Once we get on the golf course, it’s all golf. “You need to believe that you can lift the trophy, as well, and if you think about it beforehand that you might win this championship, I think that’s great, and you have to believe you can do it.” His nearest challenger in Morikawa is looking to slay history. No player in the long history of golf has won two different majors on their first try. The 2020 PGA Champion has that chance. The 24-year-old showed great composure to rebound from falling four shots back early Saturday. His win at Harding Park came when he burst out of a stacked and packed leaderboard. But this is a new beast, mainly as there are fans, and the added pressure that provides. “I’m going to try and keep it as similar as possible to every other tournament I’ve played. Hopefully trust the process and just be committed with that,” Morikawa said. “The biggest thing I can draw from the PGA is just knowing I can get it done. But I think confidence just comes from hitting good shots, quality shots, seeing putts go in. There is a lot to draw from, especially this week. “I don’t have much experience on links golf, and pretty much all the highlights in my head are from this week. Thankfully there is quite a few. Hopefully we can just use that momentum from the first three days and just bring it into the last 18. It’s going to be a grueling 18, but I look forward to it. It’s the position you want to be in.” And what of Spieth’s dragons? Well it may be more like demons after a costly finish to the third round. The former FedExCup champion gave up back-to-back bogeys on the last two holes from great position in the fairway to fall three back. The first from a poor wedge shot, the second via a three-putt from 20-feet. He’s only managed to come behind to win in two of his 12 PGA TOUR victories. And we can’t discount Conners, Scheffler or even fellow non-major winners MacKenzie Hughes (-7), Dylan Frittelli (-7), Cameron Smith (-6), Justin Harding (-6) or Marcel Siem (-6) given the last two champions at St. George’s were long shots Ben Curtis and Darren Clarke. The last 20 Open winners have come from the top nine on the leaderboard with a round to play. Only one can be the dragon slayer. Who you got?

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AUSTIN, Texas — Jon Rahm lost his match and still made it to the weekend. Scottie Scheffler needed only 14 holes to win his match against Matt Fitzpatrick, and then six more to beat him in a playoff. RELATED: Bracket, Scoring | Match recaps from Friday | Everybody on the Bland-wagon! The third full day of endless action in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play finally ended Friday when Collin Morikawa drove the green on a par 4, this one not nearly dramatic as his shot that won the PGA Championship but still effective in getting him through group play. Sixteen players remain for the knockout stage that begins Saturday morning, all of them knowing that three days of tense matches mean nothing going forward. “Now it’s real,” Abraham Ancer said after squeezing by Webb Simpson. “Now you’re for sure not advancing if you don’t win.” Rahm had that luxury by winning his opening two matches. He was sloppy on the back nine in losing to Patrick Reed, who played his best golf after already being eliminated. But the world’s No. 1 player avoided a playoff in his group when Cameron Young also lost. Seamus Power also lost his match, but by then he was already assured of winning his group. The Irishman got another reward: By reaching the fourth round, Power is assured of staying in the top 50 and getting into the Masters Tournament. Four of the groups were decided in extra holes. There are no tiebreakers, and three players who won their match had to return to the first tee for sudden death against the player they just beat. Scheffler had the toughest time. Takumi Kanaya felt the most fortunate. Scheffler had to beat Fitzpatrick to have any chance, and that was the easy part in a 5-and-4 victory. They had to wait more than two hours for all the matches to go off before their playoff began. They matched birdies on No. 1, pars on the next three holes and birdies on the fifth. Scheffler finally won on the par-5 sixth when he holed a 6-foot putt after Fitzpatrick missed from about 15 feet. “I knew the rules,” Scheffler said of going extra holes after beating Fitzpatrick in the match. “I didn’t know we had to wait so long to come back for the playoff. I was a bit surprised with that. I would have loved to have just kept going the way I was playing in the beginning, and Matt did a really good job of regrouping, and he came out and played some really nice golf in the playoff.” His reward is a match against Billy Horschel, who beat Scheffler in the championship match last year. Rahm faces Brooks Koepka, who narrowly avoided a playoff. Koepka was tied with Shane Lowry on the 18th when he hit a 45-yard pitch off packed dirt well left of the 18th green to 8 feet and made the birdie putt for a 1-up victory. Kanaya was in the same predicament as Scheffler. He had to beat Lucas Herbert of Australia, and he ended the match in 14 holes. On the first hole in the playoff, Kanaya found a fairway bunker and could only advance to some 90 yards short of the hole — Herbert with a good drive was just outside that with his second shot. Kanaya used the slope expertly for a shot to 2 feet, and Herbert three-putted from 18 feet above the hole to lose the match. Kanaya is No. 56, the lowest seed still playing, but not by much. And considering his going to the Masters in two weeks, he isn’t the biggest surprise. That would be Richard Bland of England, at 49 the oldest player in the field and the No. 54 seed this week. Bland started his Match Play debut by halving his match with Bryson DeChambeau. On Friday, he beat Lee Westwood to win the group. Bland last year became the oldest first-time winner in DP World Tour history. With one more match victory, he might be headed to his first Masters. “It’s just my time. That’s all I can put it down to,” Bland said. “But I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.” Will Zalatoris, known for his iron game, knocked out Viktor Hovland with his putter. Zalatoris made putts of 12 feet on the 16th and 18th holes, the last one giving him a 1-up victory to tie the Norwegian in group play. In the playoff, Zalatoris made a 10-foot birdie on No. 1 — Hovland made his from 6 feet — and another 10-footer on No. 2 to advance. Dustin Johnson, Kevin Kisner and Tyrrell Hatton were among five players who won all their matches. Kisner, who has won and been runner-up at the Match Play, looked tougher than ever in taking down Justin Thomas. Kisner was 6 under through six holes and shot 28 on the front nine to build a 5-up lead. He closed him out on the 15th hole. “It had to be a 10,” Kisner said when asked to rate his performance. He moved on to face Adam Scott, who had no trouble beating Jordan Spieth to advance to the weekend for the first time since 2005. His record isn’t as bad as that would suggest. “It’s hard to get there when I don’t play in the event,” Scott said with a smile. He hasn’t been to the Match Play since 2016.

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