GOLF ROUNDUP : Weibring Has the One to Watch in Canada

D.A. Weibring played 69 strokes Saturday in the third round of the 82nd Canadian Open Golf Championship.

One of them was perfect.

Weibring hit a four-iron into the cup for a hole in one on the 181-yard seventh hole. The third ace of his PGA Tour career accounted for most of his three-shot lead.

“It was a good shot, and the flight of the ball was perfect, but I wasn’t thinking ‘one,’ ” Weibring said and shrugged.

“It was just one of those things. You’re lucky when it goes in the hole,” he said after completing three trips over the Glen Abbey Golf Club course at Oakville in 14-under-par 202.

That gave him a three-stroke cushion over former Canadian Open winner Ken Green going into today’s final round. And Green, who has been in a slump most of the season, had little confidence he would be able to make up the deficit.

“If D.A. gets off to a good start tomorrow, he’s a winner,” Green said after capping a 68 with birdies on two of the last three holes.

“I’m psyched to be near the lead,” Green said. “It hasn’t happened at all this year. Up until a month ago, I’d won only $30,000. I’d just been playing awful. Then I get on some golf courses I’ve won on the last three weeks and I’ve got it up to $125,000.

“I’m still not playing the kind of golf I’d like to play. I’m not the Ken Green I’d like to be,” he said.

Jim Benepe and Brian Kamm, who were 1-2 going into the third round, dropped into a tie for third at 206 with David Edwards, Fred Couples and Jim McGovern.

Benepe, who did not make a bogey through the first 36 holes, struggled to a 75. Kamm had a variety of adventures in a round of 74. They included a four-putt triple bogey on the second hole, a chip-in from the rough for par on the 16th and a par-saving 35-foot putt on the next hole.

McGovern, Edwards and Couples all had 68s on a course that was tricky because of the winds.

Ray Stewart kept alive his hopes of becoming the first Canadian to win the event in 37 years. He shot a 70 and was at 207.

“I’m not out of it,” Stewart said.

Rocky Thompson bogeyed the final hole for the second consecutive day but still held a one-stroke lead after the second round of the PGA Senior Tour event at Grand Rapids, Mich.

Thompson shot a two-under-par 69 and was at seven-under 135, a shot in front of Harold Henning, Bob Reith, Lee Trevino and Gene Littler. Henning, who began the day at one over, shot the day’s best round, a 64. Reith and Trevino had 68s and Littler shot a 69.

Dick Hendrickson, Jim Ferree, Charlie Sifford and Bob Rawlins were two shots back at The Highlands.

Thompson, a non-winner on the PGA Tour who won in June at the Syracuse Senior event, was eight under until, for the second day in a row, he hit his tee shot on the 398-yard par-four 18th hole under a spruce tree along the right side of the fairway.

Tour rookie Michelle Estill shot her second consecutive three-under-par 69 to take a one-shot lead after two rounds of the LPGA event at Portland, Ore.

Estill, a 30-year-old from Scottsdale, Ariz., made five birdies, including four in a row to start the back nine to finish at six-under 138 after 36 holes.

England’s Karen Davies, Kris Tschetter and Danielle Ammaccapane were tied for second at 139.

“I hit my irons so bad today, it was unbelievable,” said Tschetter, who matched Davies with a 70. “I can just go out and have it all come together Sunday.”

Ammaccapane was disappointed with her 71. She birdied four holes and bogeyed three.

The last group finished just as a light rain started to fall at the Columbia-Edgewater Country Club.

Alice Miller shot a 68 and was tied at 140 with Jennifer Wyatt and Missie Bertiotti.

First-round leader Vicki Fergon fell out of the top spot when she triple-bogeyed the par-five fifth hole, finished with a 75 and was among 15 players tied at 143.