Keeling blown away as McKibbin and Power move up in high winds

Seamus Power of Ireland plays a stroke from the No. 4 tee during the final round of the 2023 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club, Sunday, April 9, 2023.

Amateur Sean Keeling crashed back to earth with an 81 but Tom McKibbin and Seamus Power made headway as high winds sent scores soaring in the third round of the Amgen Irish Open at Royal County Down.

Southerly winds gusting to 47 kmph for the early starters saw the course play more than 1.5 shots harder than the first two days and Keeling (17) fell victim on his debut.

After failing to birdie the downwind first, which yielded a string of birdies and eagles, he failed to convert a seven-footer for a two at the fourth, then ran up a triple-bogey seven at the fifth en route to a ten-over 81 that left him tied for 66th in the 68-man field on 10-over.

His playing partner, Spaniard Adrian Otaegui, fared far better, carding six birdies and four bogeys in a two-under 69 to grab the clubhouse lead on two-under.

But it was also a positive day for McKibbin and Power, even after modest rounds of 70 and 71 respectively.

The Newtownabbey star (21) came up just a few inches short of making an albatross two at the downwind first and while he bogeyed the tough fifth and followed a birdie four at the downwind 12th with a sensational bogey at the difficult par-five 18th, his one-under 70 catapulted him from 47th overnight to tied 16th on level par.

“Yeah, very, very solid,” said McKibbin, who had to make a ten-footer for bogey at the last after driving into gorse.

“I mean, the bogey at the last is annoying, but I've saved some other shots out there that I could easily have dropped.  

“But, yeah, a very satisfying day, to shoot under par out there and get to the level par for the tournament.

“I think if you're just not quite on it, you can shoot quite a high score quite quickly. But I feel like the last couple of days, sort of the last 36 holes, my game was starting to click a little bit nicer, and I've got a pretty good feel for it going into tomorrow.”

Power made four birdies and four bogeys in his 71 to move inside the top 25 on one-over.

He started and finished with birdie fours and sprinkled in chip-in birdies at the eighth and 10th to offset bogeys at the fourth, fifth, ninth and 15th, all of which were playing into the teeth of the wind.

“A lot of good stuff,” Power said of a round where he hit his two best shots of the week at the 18th — a bullet drive followed by a 270-yard three-wood that finished in a swale just right of the green.

“Again, didn't quite get it going. I kind of left a couple go in a couple of spots, but I also had a couple of chip-ins. So it probably evened out overall.

"It's a good test again there today, and you're just trying to hang in there as best you can.”

The West Waterford man got the worst side of the draw for the first two rounds and after another wind-blown day on the links, he’s hoping for more luck with the weather on Sunday.

“It's kind of been relentless,” he said. “I feel like it's been blowing whatever [windspeed] that is there today, for 54 holes. So you know, everyone's going to play in it today. So that's a good thing.”