GOLF ROUNDUP : Love Maintains Lead With a 71

An even-par round of 71 Saturday was good enough to keep Davis Love III atop the Kemper Open leaderboard. He’ll have to do better today to stay there.

Love had three birdies and three bogeys at Potomac, Md., to finish the third round at 11-under 202, one shot ahead of Payne Stewart and two in front of Corey Pavin.

Pavin had nine birdies and a bogey for a 63, matching the TPC at Avenel course record achieved three times, most recently by Love on Friday. Pavin got things going by chipping in for a birdie on No. 3.

Love had a two-shot lead after Friday’s round and had a chance to distance himself from the field Saturday. But after getting birdies on Nos. 2 and 5 to go 13 under, he hit a spectator on the sixth hole and then three-putted from the fringe for a bogey.

He fell back to par for the day by missing a four-foot putt on No. 9. After parring 10, Love missed an eight-foot putt on 11 to drop into a tie with Stewart.

A scrambling par on 13 and a birdie on 14 moved him back into the top spot, and he stayed there by parring the final four holes.

“My short game wasn’t as good as [Friday] and my putting wasn’t great,” Love said, adding that a similar round today won’t be good enough to get him the $252,000 top prize.

“That won’t win, but I don’t think it will take a 63, either,” he said.

Stewart shot a 65 to move into contention for his second victory of the year. He reeled off four consecutive birdies on Nos. 5-8, bogeyed the ninth hole and rebounded with a 10-foot birdie putt on 10.

A week ago, Stewart finished 59th at the Memorial after failing to break 70 in any of the four rounds.

After his birdie at No. 3, Pavin parred No. 4, then birdied four of the next five holes. A 70-foot birdie putt on 12 got him six under, and he birdied Nos. 14-16 before parring out.

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Julie Larsen had a three-stroke lead after shooting a four-under-par 68 in the second round of the First Bank-Edina Realty LPGA Classic at Brooklyn Mark, Minn. Her 134 total is a tournament record.

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Jim Dent shot a three-under-par 69 to take a one-stroke lead over Bob Murphy after two rounds of the BellSouth Senior Classic at Nashville.

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Bernhard Langer stretched his lead to five strokes after three rounds of the European Tournament Players Championship at Hamburg, Germany. Langer, who has led since the opening round, shot a four-under-68 for a 201 total.