Nico Echavarria recorded a stellar 7-under 65 on Saturday and holds a two-shot lead over Carson Young after three rounds of the Puerto Rico Open.
Echavarria is at 17-under 199 entering the final round. Young, the leader after each of the first two rounds, shot 71. Nate Lashley (67) and Sam Stevens (65) are tied for third at 13-under 203.
Echavarria carded one eagle, six birdies and one bogey during his sharp round at Grand Reserve Golf Club in Rio Grande. The rookie from Colombia shot a 6-under 30 on the front nine, which included the eagle on the par-5 second hole.
“Yeah, it was a dream start,” Echavarria said Saturday. “I found something on the range yesterday, and even if I felt nervous out there today on some holes, I just kept putting my game plan and my feeling of what I found on the range and it worked really good. Happy with how I played, happy with the shots I hit when I was under pressure. Hopefully, we can do it tomorrow.”
Being 18 holes away from his first career win is definitely surreal for Echavarria. The 28-year-old had missed the cut eight of 10 times prior to this event.
His best showing was tying for 12th at the Sony Open in Hawaii in mid-January. He then missed the next four cuts.
But Echavarria worked on his game and said he made adjustments with his tempo.
“I’ve been having too many things in my head of technical-wise. It was not helping,” Echavarria said. “The first two days I honestly felt like I was guiding it. I was making a lot of putts that made me keep the round going. Today, just felt the swing, trying to feel it longer on every shot, and it felt comfortable yesterday and I’ve done it before while I was struggling with tempo and hips turning too fast that we played with that all day today and probably going to play with that tomorrow.”
Young shot 63-67 the first two rounds but never found a groove on Saturday. He also is looking for his first career victory.
He made four birdies and three bogeys and his inconsistent day was capped by two birdies and two bogeys over the final five holes.
“I just didn’t hit anything really close, left myself 20, 30 feet a lot for birdie and hit a bunch of good putts, just nothing dropped for me,” Young said. “I still feel good about my game. I drove it better today than I did yesterday, which is a positive.”
Stevens finished with a flourish by making four straight birdies. Overall, he had six to go with one bogey and an eagle on the par-5 No. 5.
Lashley had seven birdies and two bogeys.
Akshay Bhatia (67) and England’s Harry Hall (68) are tied for fifth at 12 under.
–Field Level Media
