Round 3 Notes – FBR OPEN
Third-Round Notes – Saturday, February 2, 2008Sunday’s forecast:
Mostly cloudy with a 30% chance of showers in the afternoon. Rain chances will increase by Sunday evening.
Low: 43F High: 58F… Winds: S/SE 5-10mph early, then becoming S/SW 10-20mph after noon
The completion of round two was delayed 58 minutes due to frost. Round two was completed at 10:21 a.m. The tournament has experienced frost delays each day this week, beginning with a 30 minute delay on Wednesday for the Pro-Am.
The 36-hole cut was made at 2-under par 140. A total of 70 players made the cut.
Round three was contested in threesomes off both the 1st and 10th tees. Tee times were from 11:00 to 12:39 pm.
Sunday’s tee times will run from 9:00 to 10:50 am. Play will be in threesomes off both the 1st and 10th tees with an expected finish time of 4 pm (MT).
2006 FBR Open Champion J.B. Holmes is in position to win for the second time in his career. The last player to win the same event for his first two victories on the PGA TOUR was Vaughn Taylor when he won the 2004 and 2005 Reno Tahoe Open. Before Taylor, Brian Henninger won the 1994 and 1999 Southern Farm Bureau Classic.
Two players posted bogey-free rounds on Saturday, Mark Calcavecchia (64) and Justin Leonard (66).
Two former Clemson Tiger teammates are gunning for the 2008 FBR Open trophy. Charles Warren and Jonathan Byrd enter the final round two strokes behind J.B. Holmes. Warren and Byrd will be playing in the final threesome on Sunday.
Charles Warren (T2), Jonathan Byrd (T2) and Lucas Glover (T59) all played together on the same college team in 1997-98 at Clemson University. Warren was a senior, Byrd was a sophomore and Glover was a freshman. That team finished second at the NCAA Championship, three strokes back of UNLV. Out of the threesome, Byrd has three TOUR titles, Glover has won once and Warren is still seeking his first title on the PGA TOUR.
The only other 54-hole lead J.B. Holmes has held on TOUR came at the 2006 FBR Open where he went on to win by seven strokes over five players. The only other leads he has held came earlier on Saturday after the completion of the second round when he shared the 36-hole lead with four other players.
One of the longest hitters on TOUR, this week is no different for J.B. Holmes as he’s hit 33 of 42 drives 300 yards or longer through three rounds. Holmes has ranked inside the top 3 on TOUR for driving distance – (all drives every year since 2005). He ranks first in driving distance (all drives) this week with an average of 313.7
Kenny Perry is playing in his 21st consecutive FBR Open. He has now made the cut in 16 of those starts, with a runner-up finish in 2002 his best outing out of five top-10 finishes. He entered the final round that year one stroke behind Duffy Waldorf, before falling by a single stroke to Chris DiMarco. An even-par 71 on Saturday moved Perry into T12.
Mark Calcavecchia, who is playing in his 22nd consecutive FBR Open, moved up the leaderboard with the best round of the day, a 7-under-par 64. The three-time winner is 9-under through three rounds and five shots behind Holmes. A win on Sunday would make Calcavecchia the all-time winningest player at the FBR Open. He is seeking his 10th top-10 finish here in Scottsdale.
Justin Leonard, who is just four strokes back of the 54-hole leader, is off to a solid start in 2008, thanks to his fifth-place finish last week at the Buick Invitational, his third top-10 effort in three starts. Leonard finished second at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, after beginning the season with a T8 at the Mercedes-Benz Championship. Leonard has now finished inside the top 10 in six of his last seven tournaments, dating back to his win at the 2007 Valero Texas Open. In fact, last year he jumped from 99th on the money list to finish 33rd at the end of the season during the PGA TOUR Fall Series.
With one round remaining at the FBR Open, J.B. Holmes is at 14-under-par and has a two-stroke lead over Charles Warren and Jonathan Byrd. Since the tournament moved to the TPC of Scottsdale in 1987 only 10 times has a player managed to get to 20-under-par for the week, with three-time winner Mark Calcavecchia accounting for three of the 10. See list below:
1989 Mark Calcavecchia (won) 263 21-under
1992 Mark Calcavecchia (won) 264 20-under
1997 Steve Jones (won) 258 26-under
2001 Mark Calcavecchia (won) 256 28-under
2001 Rocco Mediate (2nd) 264 20-under
2003 Vijay Singh (won) 261 23-under
2003 John Huston (2nd) 264 20-under
2006 J.B. Holmes (won) 263 21-under
2007 Arron Baddeley (won) 263 21-under
2007 John Rollins (2nd) 264 20-under
When the second round wrapped up on Saturday morning, five players shared the 36-hole lead (J.B. Holmes, Doug LaBelle, Jonathan Byrd, Kenny Perry, Camilo Villegas). It represented the most players to have held the lead at the halfway point of the FBR Open since such records existed, dating back to the 1948 season. During that 61-year stretch, the most players to have previously held the 36-hole lead was three, occuring in 1954, 1965 and 1971.
1954 - Stan Leonard, Cary Middlecoff, Peter Thomson
1965 - Frank Beard, Al Geiberger, Bert Yancey
1971 - Miller Barber, Paul Harney, Gene Littler
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