Chase for Grace Goes On Today

If it really is lonely at the top, it also might be uncomfortable, which is what Grace Park could be feeling today, if Annika Sorenstam and Cristie Kerr are right.

Park shot a third-round 71 Saturday and holds a three-shot lead at the $825,000 Samsung World Championship, pursued by Sorenstam and Kerr, who promptly suggested that Park probably should feel a little unsettled right about now.

Just because they’re nearest to Park, neither Kerr nor Sorenstam sounded as if they were playing any mind games, just offering some perspective.

“Holding the lead is not necessarily an advantage,” Kerr said. “Nor is it a comfortable place to be in sometimes.

“More eyes are on you, the pressure is on you.”

Kerr birdied the first five holes to move ahead of Park briefly and finished with a 69, a score that Sorenstam matched on another steamy day in Palm Desert at Bighorn Golf Club, where the pins were difficult, the course was toughened and no one had an easy day.

That included Park, who was sailing along with no trouble in sight until the 18th, where she hit her drive to the right and knocked her ball under a bush, near some boulders.

Park took a penalty shot for an unplayable lie, then got a free drop because the scoreboard was in her line of sight. She finally got the ball on the green and two-putted for a fortunate bogey.

The 67 that Michelle Wie turned in was the best round of the day, but the 15-year-old trails Park by 13 shots.

“Nobody went really deep,” Park said. “I stalled, everybody stalled. I’m just lucky.”

Park’s total of 16-under 200 is still the lead, no matter its size, although Sorenstam pointed out the many pitfalls of playing from ahead.

“When you are in the lead, my experience has been you look at the leaderboards a lot, you wonder if somebody is going to get hot, are they going to catch me?” Sorenstam said. “When you start playing conservative, a lot of times you can make a mistake. So it is not so easy to have a lead.”

Maybe so, but Park has shown she can close the deal. Park has been the leader or tied for the lead through three rounds in five tournaments, including the Kraft Nabisco in March, and she has won four times.

“I just have to hang in there for one more round,” she said.

Kerr, who has won three times this year, finished with seven birdies and four bogeys and said there’s no pressure on her, although she wished she could have kept up her five-birdie beginning.

“I’ve never really started with five birdies in a row,” she said, “so maybe I didn’t know how to handle it.”

On her way to her round of five under, Wie got some solid advice before her round, from her mother, Bo: “Mom told me to hit all the shots so you don’t have to putt.”

It certainly worked out at the first hole, when Wie hit her approach to two inches and tapped in for birdie, then she birded the second hole, also from close range. Wie faltered briefly at the 470-yard, par-five seventh, even though she reached the green in two. She four-putted for bogey, missing her second putt from nine feet.

Wie rebounded with a birdie at the next hole, played the last five holes in three under and finished with birdie from 40 feet to put a smile on her face.

“I want to have fun,” she said. “I also need to work on my putting a little more. It’s a lot more fun when the putts go in.”

Wie is 15th in the 20-player field at three-under 213, but she has hopes for today’s final round.

“I want to finish top 10, and right now that means a really low score. Maybe I can shoot in the 50s, that might mean top five. I just want to get up there, not at the bottom.”