Dermot McElroy is just three shots off the lead going into the final round of the Indoor Golf Group Challenge at Landeryds Golfklub in Sweden after shooting a second successive 67.
The Ballymena man didn’t have quite the highs and lows of round two where he was -7 though 10 and proceeded to drop three in the next two holes, and instead opened with eight pars and appeared to be stuck in neutral on moving day.
A birdie at the ninth kickstarted the round, and he added another on 10 before a bogey on 12 halted his charge. The par-5 12th has been his nemesis this week, and after his double there on day two, he’s now +3 for the week on the hole. Not to be deterred, he struck back to birdie 13 and then added two more on 17 and 18 to move to -10 for the tournament.
“Yeah, I’m pleased,” he said afterwards. “I stayed patient – it was a tricky day today, especially on that front nine – the wind was blowing, the pins were tricky and I thought the greens were faster as well – they were very fast today – and they’re obviously firm as well, so you had to hit it in the right position and if you missed in the wrong position it was nearly an impossible up-and-down.
“But I’m very happy because I stayed patient and hit it where I needed to hit it.”
Despite making eight birdies on day two, he hadn’t been entirely happy with his driving and felt that it would need to improve if he was to get a maiden Challenge Tour victory.
“A little bit,” he replied when asked how much of an improvement he’d seen on Saturday. “It was still pretty poor if I’m being honest. It’s nowhere near as bad as the first two days, and I hit a couple right but it was only a little right, not 50 or 60 yards left. I hit a couple of nice ones, but I think I just need to keep working on it.
“I’m very happy with my iron play, chipping and putting though.”
The birdie-birdie finish means he will be in the final group alongside local favourite and tournament leader Mikael Lindberg, with another Swede in Joakim Lagergren completing the trio.
“Yeah, that’s great,” he said. “I looked at the leaderboard on the little device we have. I normally don’t do it, but I thought I’ll have a look anyway and I saw that the leader was at 12 (under) so I thought ‘get to nine at least or 10 and give myself a chance because he’s probably going to birdie the last.
“So it’s great to be in touch and hopefully I can give myself a chance tomorrow.”
Jonathan Caldwell and Conor O’Rourke, the only other Irishmen to make the cut, shot rounds of 74 and 77 respectively to slip further down the leaderboard.
McElroy gets underway at 09:40 local time (08:40 Irish) as he seeks to go one better than last year’s Challenge de Espana where he finished runner-up after losing out in a playoff.