Casey in pole position for Abu Dhabi title
Maybe Paul Casey should have low expectations more often.
The 31-year-old Ryder Cup star followed a 65 with a dazzling 63 – one outside the course record – today and leads by four going into the final round of the Abu Dhabi Championship.
Meanwhile Open and US PGA champion Padraig Harrington had hoped his 68 for 11 under would leave him with a chance, but although he is in a tie for eighth now, eight strokes to make up on a Ryder Cup teammate is surely too much.
Youthful countryman Rory McIlroy, who shone on the tournament's opening rounds, carded a 71 to slip back to joint 12th on 10 under.
“I’m not putting pressure on myself because it’s early in the season,” said Casey, who has to go all the way back to the same event two years ago for his last victory.
No fewer than 15 top 10 finishes have come since then, but the former World Match Play champion decided to stay at home and work hard on his game last month rather than go on honeymoon.
It is paying immediate dividends.
At 19 under par Casey is already two better than his winning mark in 2007, but he will be aware that his closest challenger now, German Martin Kaymer, is the man who lifted the trophy last year.
That was the 24-year-old German’s maiden European Tour success and he came close to securing a Ryder Cup debut on the back of it.
Kaymer knocked four strokes off his two opening 68s, but still found that it left him further behind as Casey grabbed four birdies on the front nine, three more in the next four holes and then closed with two more.
The one on the long 10th was a complete bonus. Casey drove under a tree, but sank a 40-foot putt.
“That was the turning point, I think,” he added. “On the second shot I didn’t know where the ball was going to go and I didn’t know whether I would break my club.”
He had not been too happy with his ball-striking on Friday despite the score, but chose not to practise and, having complained of jetlag after coming to the event from his base in Arizona, his body clock finally seemed to have adjusted itself.
“Something clicked,” he said. “A good night’s sleep seemed to cure the ball-striking ills. That was a lot of fun – I have not had a 63 in a long time.”
On the European Tour his last was three years ago and he has only once shot better.
“I just really like this course. I have fun when I’m walking round.”
Joint halfway leaders were fellow Englishman Graeme Storm and Australian left-hander Richard Green.
Storm slipped to third on 14 under with a 69, but Green crashed all the way to joint 28th with a 76.
Alongside him on seven under is Colin Montgomerie. The Scot’s 70 was not what he was hoping for, but possibly he has other things on his mind – although there is still no official confirmation, he is on the verge it seems of becoming Ryder Cup captain.
That is a change of heart after declaring he wanted to regain his place on the team at Celtic Manor, but he will be 51 by the time the match returns to Scottish soil in 2014 and it appears to have been agreed by the tournament committee, of which he is a member, that the captain should be someone in touch with the younger players.
Nick Faldo was 50 when he did the job last September and both Sandy Lyle and Ian Woosnam, both of whom expressed an interest in 2010, would be 52.
As for Jose Maria Olazabal, Faldo’s vice-captain and viewed as the favourite for Celtic Manor, he is three years younger than Montgomerie at 42 and looks odds-on for Chicago in three years’ time.
