Tournament of Champions: Martin Laird finds his putting technique, bounces back in third round - Golf News
Martin Laird was seen struggling with his putting on the second day of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. However, in the third round, he found something that helped him gain some momentum in his strokes at the Plantation Course on Sunday.
Laird said that the second day of the event saw his putting become worse than usual. He added that he lost control over his grip and felt as if he had forgotten the technique to make the putts properly.
Conversely, he looked much better on Sunday when he recorded 2.770 strokes on the field as compared to the 3.258 strokes on Saturday, according to the Strokes Gained-Putting stats on PGA Tour’s official website.
Laird told that he was pushing too hard on Saturday while making the putts. Moreover, he had the ball too far from his stance when putting into the green.
However, he changed his technique on Sunday by moving back a little. As a result, the ball started to come out straighter, helping him find the holes without any trouble.
Consequently, he shot a better round by finishing at six under 67 and moved to 14 under tournament score.
This allowed him to remain in contention with the tournament leader, Steve Stricker, who still had five shots over him.
If Laird had not managed to improve his putting technique, he would have gone out of the competition.
Overall, he succeeded in making seven birdies in the round, along with a bogey on par-3 11th hole. He carded four birdies in the first 10 holes and three came after the bogey he made.
Laird will now play with Webb Simpson in a group and Stricker will join the defending champ Jonathan Byrd in the final round.
He will be looking forward to chasing Stricker on the leaderboard. He knows that it will be a great challenge to defeat Stricker, although not an impossible feat.
"I don’t know what it will take but I’m guessing a minimum of 8 under, probably," Laird said. "I can’t imagine him shooting much higher than 70. So it’s going to be an interesting day".
The final round of the tournament will be interesting to watch when all these players will be putting their best on the field.
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