Potgieter fires 61 to lead in Mexico
South African rookie Aldrich Potgieter fired a 10-under 61 to take a four-shot lead into the weekend in the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld.
Padraig Harrington lost confidence on the greens and shot 75 to miss the cut by four shots.
But big-hitting former Amateur champion Potgieter (21), who shot 59 at the Korn Ferry Tour’s Astara Golf Championship last year, became the fourth-youngest player to shoot 61 or lower on the PGA Tour since 1983.
He had the chance to become the first player to shoot sub-60 on the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour, but he parred the final two par-fives to fall two shots short.
At 16-under he leads by four shots from Germany’s Stephan Jaeger as he looks to become the seventh non-US winner in the first eight events on the PGA Tour this year.
"I knew on the back nine there was a couple of par 5s, three par 5s that I still had available to me, just tried to birdie those three and come up with a good score," Potgieter said.
“Yeah, made some bonus birdies and didn't birdie the par 5s, which were unfortunate. Yeah, really happy with today.”
One of the best young drivers of the ball in the game, Potgieter explained he’d been seeing good results practising by teeing the ball low with his driver and took the same strategy to the course, hitting the green in two at the 661-yard 12th after crushing a driver off the deck.
"I was telling my caddie, I was like 'let's just do the same thing,'” he explained. “It was a perfect number, so yeah, hit the perfect shot."
He won The Amateur Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 2022, beating Laytown and Bettystown’s Alex Maguire 3&1 in the semifinals before going on to beat current DP Works Tour stalwart Sam Bairstow 3&2 in the 36-hole final.
As for Harrington, the Dubliner (53) double-bogeyed his opening hole, the tough 10th, after driving into the water and never got going.
He’d missed several putts inside five feet in an opening 68 and struggled on day two, taking 32 putts en route to a 75 to miss the cut by four strokes on one-over.
“Struggled trusting my reads on the greens and putted badly because of that,” Harrington said on X after a round where he missed a 19-inch putt par putt at the third.
On the LPGA Tour, Leona Maguire birdied three of her last nine holes to card a two-under 70 in the third round of the Honda LPGA Thailand.
She moved up to tied 31st on four under at Siam Country Club but lies 17 strokes behind Angel Yin, who shot a bogey-free, eight-under 64 to lead by five shots on 21-under from Japanese rookie Akie Iwai, who carded a 71.
