Brett Wetterich
Brett Wetterich fired a 1-under-par 70 Saturday and maintained his lead through three rounds of the Chitimacha Louisiana Open. Wetterich led by midway through the back nine but opened the door to his challengers with a couple of late mistakes and will take a two-stroke advantage into Sunday's finale at Le Triomphe Country Club.
Wetterich, winner of this event in 2003, is at 11-under 202, two better than 2009 champion Bubba Dickerson (67), Rich Barcelo (68) and Charles Warren (69).
University of Florida senior Andres Echavarria (70) is alone in fifth, three back.Martin Flores (68) holds down solo sixth at 7-under, four behind.
"I'm definitely leaving with a sour taste today," said Wetterich, a PGA TOUR member this year. "I'm still leading and they've got to come catch me. It's up to me to play good golf and not let them."
Wetterich was playing very good golf and was 4-under for the day through 14 windy holes and had increased his lead to five strokes when he reached the tee at the par-4, 15thhole.
"I made a hiccup there, snap-hooked one out of bounds and it cost me a double-bogey. It was a terrible mistake," said Wetterich, who has hit only 16 of 39 fairways the first three days. "I made another bad tee shot on 18 (water) and it cost me a bogey. Other than that I can't complain."
Wetterich continues to rally with his irons. He leads the touarnament in greens in regulation, hitting 14, 16 and 15 in the first three rounds.
"I hit the ball great and did the things I needed to do," he said. "I just made a bad swing. I was having a good round. It definitely takes some air out of you but today's over and I've still got a two-shot lead."
Dickerson and Barcelo both rolled in birdie putts at the final hole to reach the clubhouse at 9-under par.
"Brett's won before, he's a veteran," said Barcelo. "I don't expect him to do much backing up. I just put my head down and knew I needed to make birdies."
Everybody figured they needed to make more birdies to catch Wetterich, who is making his first Nationwide Tour since playing in this event five years ago.
"As it happened, Brett gave a few back unfortunately at the end there," said Warren, who was in the final group. "I think he let some guys back in the golf tournament, me included."
Warren looked like he was out of it when he hooked his tee shot out of bounds on the difficult par-4, 14thhole. The mistake led to a triple-bogey and dropped him seven back at the time.
"Through 13 holes I couldn't have drawn up a better round of golf," said Warren. "Brett was just playing great."
After putting a 7 on his scorecard, Warren rallied and canned two of four birdie putts he looked at down the stretch.
"I was proud of myself," he said. "At that point it would have been easy to pack it up without a chance to win."
