Commercial Bank Qatar Masters R3

Qatar Masters 2021 R3
March 11-14
Education City Golf Club, Education City, Doha, Qatar
US$1,500,000
Round 1, Round 2, Round 4

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Darren Fichardt will take a one stroke lead into the final round of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters as he seeks a second victory in Doha.

The South African, who won this event in 2003, carded a one under par 70 at Education City Golf Club in a round which included a double bogey and two further dropped shots as the field again battled howling winds in the Qatari capital.

The five-time European Tour winner recovered from dropping three shots in just two holes on the 13th and 14th , with birdies on the 16th and 17th , to record a seven under par total after three rounds, one stroke ahead of England’s Jack Senior, who carded a level par 71.

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“When I started today I couldn’t get the pace right, the greens sped up significantly with the wind,” said Fichardt. “I was three-whacking like it was going out of fashion, on every green. Luckily I figured my swing out on the range before I teed off. I said to my wife to give ourselves opportunities and to try and get our first putt past the hole. When they started dropping I started to get a nice rhythm and a nice flow.”

“Then I got to the par five 13 – that’s a hell of a par five, plus wind. I walked off there making a double and felt a bit out of sorts. I three-whacked the next green. I tried to gather my thoughts and realise it’s tough out there, everyone was struggling and to try and finish with a couple of pars coming home – luckily I got two birdies.”

A two-time winner on the European Challenge Tour, Senior will go in search of a maiden European Tour victory on Sunday.

“That was a battle from start to finish,” said Senior. “I got off to a half-decent start, quite a quick start really. Then the wind started gusting on the back nine, you just had to hang on for dear life.”

“When we got on the 12th tee we looked at the wind direction, we hit a shot – I think I hit seven iron and pitched it 131 yards – it was really strong at that point.”

“All I can do is control what I’m doing. The old saying is it’s one shot at a time but that’s all you’ve got to do. Go out there with a clear head tomorrow and give it my best shot.”

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India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar is third on five under par after a round of 68, while Frenchman Antoine Rozner made the biggest move on the leaderboard, rising 35 places after also recording a three under par round.

“I had a good start to the tournament, four under on day one was pretty solid,” said Bhullar. “Yesterday I hit the ball pretty good and gave myself a lot of birdie opportunities. I made a few silly mistakes in the beginning, but played well on the back nine. That was the time when the wind picked up. I had a feeling of confidence that I could play well in the wind.

“Today from the first hole it was gusting and howling pretty much the whole day. I hit the ball well and gave myself a lot of opportunities, I drove the ball okay and didn’t miss too many fairways. The main target was to keep the ball in play and make sure I was hitting a lot of my shots in regulation to stay in the game.”

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Rozner shares fourth with Joachim B. Hansen of Denmark and Welshman Jamie Donaldson on four under par.

“It was very difficult. The wind was blowing very hard, it wasn’t easy to get good yardages on the second shots,” said Rozner. “The hardest part today was putting – the short putts are becoming a lot more difficult. Holing out a four-footer for par or birdie becomes a hell of a lot harder. I think I managed that pretty well. I hit a lot of greens and made good par saves when I missed them. I’m very, very happy with my round today.”

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Pos.	Player	To Par	R1	R2	R3	Total
1	Darren Fichardt	-7	68	68	70	206
2	Jack Senior	-6	68	68	71	207
3	Gaganjeet Bhullar	-5	67	73	68	208
T4	Jamie Donaldson	-4	68	68	73	209
T4	Joachim B. Hansen	-4	66	71	72	209
T4	Antoine Rozner *	-4	69	72	68	209
T7	Thomas Detry	-3	66	72	72	210
T7	Chris Paisley	-3	67	70	73	210
T7	Brandon Stone	-3	69	68	73	210
T10	Nino Bertasio	-2	65	72	74	211
T10	Jorge Campillo *	-2	67	74	70	211
T10	Lorenzo Gagli	-2	68	70	73	211
T10	Kurt Kitayama	-2	67	69	75	211
T10	Richard McEvoy	-2	65	73	73	211
T10	Callum Shinkwin	-2	70	68	73	211
T10	Jeff Winther	-2	67	67	77	211
T10	Fabrizio Zanotti	-2	67	70	74	211
T18	Yi Keun Chang *	-1	70	71	71	212
T18	Raphael Jacquelin	-1	70	69	73	212
T18	Guido Migliozzi	-1	71	67	74	212
T18	Shaun Norris	-1	69	70	73	212
T18	Matthieu Pavon	-1	68	69	75	212
T18	Johannes Veerman *	-1	71	69	72	212
T24	Maverick Antcliff *	E	69	72	72	213
T24	Marcus Armitage *	E	69	72	72	213
T24	Thomas Pieters	E	68	69	76	213
T24	Dale Whitnell	E	68	72	73	213
T28	Sean Crocker *	1	68	73	73	214
T28	Grant Forrest	1	71	68	75	214
T28	Garrick Higgo	1	66	71	77	214
T28	Scott Jamieson	1	67	71	76	214
T28	Joakim Lagergren	1	66	72	76	214
T28	David Law	1	64	75	75	214
T28	Niklas Lemke *	1	70	72	72	214
T28	Alexander Levy *	1	71	72	71	214
T28	Kalle Samooja	1	65	71	78	214
T28	Shubhankar Sharma	1	71	68	75	214
T28	Jordan Smith *	1	69	74	71	214
T28	Lars van Meijel *	1	69	72	73	214
T40	John Catlin	2	70	70	75	215
T40	Louis De Jager *	2	68	72	75	215
T40	David Drysdale *	2	70	72	73	215
T40	Jazz Janewattananond	2	69	70	76	215
T40	Romain Langasque	2	70	70	75	215
T40	Eddie Pepperell	2	69	71	75	215
T40	Justin Walters *	2	73	70	72	215
T47	Steven Brown *	3	69	74	73	216
T47	Dave Coupland *	3	69	74	73	216
T47	Rhys Enoch *	3	69	74	73	216
T47	Maximilian Kieffer *	3	67	75	74	216
T47	Ricardo Santos *	3	71	71	74	216
T47	Andy Sullivan *	3	69	74	73	216
T47	Connor Syme *	3	69	72	75	216
T47	Chris Wood *	3	73	68	75	216
T47	Hennie du Plessis	3	65	74	77	216
T56	Wil Besseling *	4	72	69	76	217
T56	Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño	4	69	70	78	217
T56	Pedro Figueiredo *	4	67	74	76	217
T56	Wilco Nienaber	4	69	71	77	217
T56	Matthias Schwab *	4	71	71	75	217
T61	Ashley Chesters *	5	72	70	76	218
T61	Benjamin Hebert *	5	71	72	75	218
T63	Alexander Björk *	6	68	73	78	219
T63	Ignacio Elvira Mijares *	6	69	73	77	219
T63	Francesco Laporta *	6	68	73	78	219
T66	Richie Ramsay *	7	69	74	77	220
T66	Cormac Sharvin *	7	70	73	77	220
T66	Toby Tree *	7	67	75	78	220
T69	Alejandro Cañizares *	8	73	69	79	221
T69	Robert Rock *	8	72	71	78	221
71	Julian Suri	9	70	68	84	222
72	Marcus Kinhult *	10	70	73	80	223
CUT	Shergo Al Kurdi (a)	2	68	76		144
CUT	Joost Luiten	2	69	75		144
CUT	Adrian Meronk	2	72	72		144
CUT	Edoardo Molinari	2	69	75		144
CUT	Darius van Driel	2	70	74		144
CUT	Jonathan Caldwell	3	75	70		145
CUT	Laurie Canter	3	71	74		145
CUT	SSP Chawrasia	3	70	75		145
CUT	George Coetzee	3	67	78		145
CUT	Stephen Gallacher	3	70	75		145
CUT	Gregory Havret	3	70	75		145
CUT	Søren Kjeldsen	3	72	73		145
CUT	Pablo Larrazabal	3	72	73		145
CUT	Zander Lombard	3	73	72		145
CUT	Kyong-Jun Moon	3	70	75		145
CUT	James Morrison	3	75	70		145
CUT	Wade Ormsby	3	69	76		145
CUT	Adrian Otaegui	3	69	76		145
CUT	Benjamin Poke	3	71	74		145
CUT	Aaron Rai	3	73	72		145
CUT	Sebastian Soderberg	3	73	72		145
CUT	Clement Sordet	3	71	74		145
CUT	Matthew Southgate	3	73	72		145
CUT	Lucas Bjerregaard	4	77	69		146
CUT	Richard Bland	4	70	76		146
CUT	Sebastian Garcia Rodriguez	4	69	77		146
CUT	Sebastian Heisele	4	70	76		146
CUT	Scott Hend	4	74	72		146
CUT	Rasmus Højgaard	4	74	72		146
CUT	Masahiro Kawamura	4	72	74		146
CUT	Ayoub Lguirati (a)	4	75	71		146
CUT	Haotong Li	4	71	75		146
CUT	Garrick Porteous	4	69	77		146
CUT	Haydn Porteous	4	74	72		146
CUT	Oliver Wilson	4	71	75		146
CUT	Aaron Cockerill	5	73	74		147
CUT	Justin Harding	5	70	77		147
CUT	Calum Hill	5	72	75		147
CUT	David Howell	5	73	74		147
CUT	Sihwan Kim	5	76	71		147
CUT	Tae Hee Lee	5	75	72		147
CUT	Robin Roussel	5	73	74		147
CUT	Saleh Al Kaabi (a)	6	73	75		148
CUT	Nicolas Colsaerts	6	71	77		148
CUT	Ewen Ferguson	6	74	74		148
CUT	Ross McGowan	6	70	78		148
CUT	Tapio Pulkkanen	6	75	73		148
CUT	Joel Stalter	6	73	75		148
CUT	Daan Huizing	7	77	72		149
CUT	Kristoffer Reitan	7	74	75		149
CUT	Bernd Ritthammer	7	71	78		149
CUT	Ross Fisher	8	76	74		150
CUT	Rikard Karlberg	8	70	80		150
CUT	Alvaro Quiros	8	76	74		150
CUT	Lee Slattery	8	75	75		150
CUT	Oliver Farr	9	73	78		151
CUT	Gavin Kyle Green	9	72	79		151
CUT	Paul Dunne	10	74	78		152
CUT	Jean Baptiste Gonnet	10	75	77		152
CUT	Ruan Jordaan	11	76	77		153
CUT	Carlos Pigem	11	78	75		153
CUT	Adrien Saddier	11	75	78		153
CUT	Robin Sciot-Siegrist	11	75	78		153
CUT	Oliver Fisher	12	78	76		154
CUT	Renato Paratore	14	78	78		156
CUT	Ali Al Shahrani (a)	24	82	84		166
WD	Matthew Jordan	2	73			73
WD	Dean Burmester	8	74	72		146
WD	Adri Arnaus	4	70	38		108
WD	Marc Warren	6	77			77
DISQ	Jaham Al Kuwari (a)	22	79	81		160
* Player started on the back nine