Kim (67) makes right kind of splash

One curiosity of budding golf star Anthony Kim is his grip: He chokes up an inch or two on nearly every club.

It’s a holdover from when Kim was a kid learning to play with adult clubs too long for his arms. He’s 23 now, but the Los Angeles native believes choking up still serves him well with solid, controlled shots.

That was evident Saturday when Kim fired a five-under-par 67 that -- combined with Jim Furyk’s watery debacle on the finishing hole -- lifted Kim into the third-round lead of the Chevron World Challenge.

Kim finished with a three-round total of 208, or eight under, one shot ahead of Furyk at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, host of the charity tournament that benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation.

Three others were tied at six under: Vijay Singh, who also shot 67; Steve Stricker (68) and Camilo Villegas (69).

On the last day of autumn, and with temperatures finally reaching the 60s after a cold rain storm moved through the area Wednesday, Kim reeled off six birdies and one bogey to challenge Furyk, who led the first two rounds.

“I played very solid,” Kim said, adding that early in the round he also fixed a putting problem that had bedeviled him Friday when he missed several birdie putts.

“I was standing too close to the ball and hunching over it,” said Kim, a brash, affable player known for his glitzy belt buckles emblazoned with “AK.”

“So, [I] figured that out on No. 5 and started rolling the ball pretty well from there on in,” he said.

Kim’s birdies included one on the par-four 10th hole, where he used a Tiger Woods-like blast from the fairway rough to land the ball six feet from the cup and then made the putt.

Even so, it appeared Furyk might keep the lead -- or at least part of it -- for a third day. He too made six birdies and was nine under for the tournament.

Then he walked to the 18th hole, a 446-yard par four with a pond guarding the front of the green.

Furyk drove his tee shot far to the right, prompting him to drop his driver in disgust before his swing was completed.

With a difficult sidehill lie, Furyk hit his second shot into the rock-protected pond, the ball’s splash triggering a loud “ooohhh” from the gallery surrounding the green.

After taking a penalty drop, Furyk pitched to the green but missed the putt, giving him a double-bogey six, a 70 for the round and knocking him out of the lead for the $1.35-million first prize.

“The last hole was disappointing,” Furyk said. “I think I was just trying too hard.”

Regardless, “if you would have told me three days ago I would have been one back with a chance to win today, I would have been pretty happy about it considering I haven’t played” in recent weeks, he said. “I played well today.”

Furyk also said he had no plans to change his game because he’s battling with aggressive, younger players such as Kim and Villegas.

“I learned a long time ago that it doesn’t matter if it’s Tiger, Phil [Mickelson], Anthony or the most conservative guy in the world . . . or what style of game they play because it can’t affect mine,” Furyk said.

“I like Anthony, we’ll talk a lot tomorrow” because they’ll be paired for the final round, he added. “But I really won’t pay attention to his style of game.”

Finchem’s forecast

Woods’ absence from the tour since his surgery in June has pared golf’s following on television, but his return in 2009 should help the sport as it copes with the tough economy, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said.

“Tiger brings the softer [more casual] viewer in droves to television, so we suffered on the television-ratings side,” Finchem told reporters at Sherwood on Saturday.

“But we had a great year,” he said, and next season there will be widespread interest in “the coming back of Tiger, and can he play and can he have stamina and can he win?”

“At the same time, we’ve got these new guys [Kim and Villegas] and so [there will be] a lot of speculation about if Tiger comes back and he’s healthy, can these guys beat him? I think that sets us up [favorably].”

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james.peltz@latimes.com