Report by Anand Datla
October 04, 2014: The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship took an interesting twist with Rory McIlroy soaring to the top of the leaderboard with a spectacular round of golf on the old course at St. Andrews. The Northern Irishman was 9-under through 15 holes and 13-under overall midway through the third round. Meanwhile, Jeev Milkha Singh completed his round at 8-over, certain to miss the cut. Shiv Kapur was just above the cut line, which was expected to fall at 3-under. Kapur was two under on Saturday and 4-under overall after playing the first nine holes at the Kingsbarns Golf Links.
McIlroy ran up five straight birdies on the front nine, scoring nine birdies over fourteen holes to surge into the lead. Oliver Wilson was in hot pursuit, as the duo exchanged or shared the lead for much of the day.
Milkha Singh continued his run of missed cuts with another weekend off the greens. The Indian could only manage a 73 on Saturday as he slipped to 8-over through three rounds. The cut was projected to be falling at 3-under, which meant that Singh was clearly out of the tournament even before the end of the third round.
With plenty of low scores on offer this week, Kapur was just about staying afloat at 4-under, hovering just above the cut line. Kapur started with a birdie – bogey at the first two holes before settling into a steady stream of pars, punctuated only by birdies at the 5th and the 8th holes to stay at two under for the round.
McIlroy was the talk of the day, as he climbed an enormous 104 spots on the leaderboard to snatch the lead after a hugely impressive effort on Saturday. McIlroy needed just 30 shots to make the turn and after three more birdies off the first five holes on the back nine, he looked set for a round in the low 60s with only three holes left to be played.
Follow golfingindian.com on Facebook.com/Golfingindian
