KUALA LUMPUR: Again, bad weather took the shine off a beautiful day of golf when it prevented the third round of the Toyota Tour Championship from being completed at Saujana Golf & Country Club, with 27 players having to return to the Palm course and continue from 7.15 in the morning.
The clubhouse leader is Nopparat Panichphol of Thailand who shot a 69 for a three-day aggregate of six-under 210 to lead Malaysia's Paul San and Pakistan star Ahmad Baig by a stroke.
Bunched together a further stroke behind were four players including Malaysian Danial Faidz.
However the highlight of the day was the hole-in-one by Suttinon Panyo who aced the second hole, reckoned as one of the toughest par threes in the region. It was the fourth hole-in-one achieved on the 2023 Toyota Tour.
Suttinon, involved in a battle royale with Malaysia's Galven Green in the final group, used a five-iron for his first ace outside of Thailand where he is ranked ninth. After 15 holes, the Thai led Green by two strokes with an eagle (hole-in-one), three birdies and a bogey and is at minus 12.
Green started his third round brightly, with four birdies in his opening nine holes and led his Thai opponent by a stroke. Then Green bogeyed 10th, 13th and doubled the 14th. He stopped the rot with a birdie on the next hole. Khalin Joshi who also has three holes to go in the morning, is just one stroke behind Galven. The Indian professional started with a bogey on the first hole but added five birdies along the way.
Leading scores (Rd3)
210 Nopparat Panichphol 73-68-69 211 Paul San 72-69-70, Ahmad Baig 71-70-70
212 Danial Faidz 71-72-69, Expharwit Wu 73-67-72, Supravee Phatam 74-71-67, Tawit Polthai 71-72-69
213 Peradol Panyathanasedh 74-68-71, Shinichi Mizuno 70-70-73, Oscar Zetterwall 71-69-73, Michele Ortolani 68-73-72 ___