Kevin Na In Lead After 2012 Players Championship Third Round

After day three of the 2012 Players Championship had ended, Kevin Na found himself atop the leaderboard once again, one shot ahead of Matt Kuchar and three shots ahead of Rickie Fowler after shooting a solid round of four under 68 for the day.

Kevin Na has won previously on the PGA Tour a few years ago, but just hasn’t been able to get four solid rounds of golf together to pick up a win at an event.  This year he has made ten cuts to go along with four top 10 finishes, but had been coming off of a bad stretch (withdraw, missed cut) over his past two event so it wasn’t expected that he would even make the cut at this week’s event let alone be in the lead heading into the final round.  Na’s putter has really been the difference maker for him, as he ranks in the top five in the field in many putting categories; it doesn’t hurt either to have the most birdies in the field as well.  However, one aspect of his game that has been criticized by many is his slow play.  He was nearly given a one stroke penalty for playing too slowly on Saturday, and it could create problems for him on Sunday if he were to continue playing very slowly.

One golfer who will look to take down Kevin Na on Sunday is Matt Kuchar, who shot a third round 69 to put himself one shot out.  He would have been tied with Na heading into the final round, but hit a poor shot at the 17^th hole’s island green into the water and ended up making bogey.  Kuchar has also been putting great throughout the entire week, but has been inconsistent as times.  If he can get everything together over a four hour stretch he could certainly walk away with the victory, especially if Na were to somehow backtrack to begin his final round.

Lastly there is Rickie Fowler, who shot a fantastic round of 66 to vault himself into third place overall at The Players Championship.  The key for Fowler this week has been his iron game, as he has improved his greens in regulation hit in each consecutive round at this week’s event, hitting nearly 90% of them on Saturday.  His only mishap of the day came on the last hole, where he made a disappointing bogey.  Fowler will need to go low again on Sunday to have a chance to win, but it is certainly a possibility.