Date: September 08, 2012
Author: Omnisport

Griffin takes command

Matthew Griffin has taken a solo lead at the High1 Resort Open, with the Australian holding a two-stroke buffer with one round to play. Having started Saturday&aposs third round tied for the lead with Lee Jun-seok, Griffin opened strongly at the High1 Country Club in South Korea with a birdie on the par-5 second hole, followed by two more on the seventh and eighth to move to 10 under for the tournament. Lee dropped shots on the third and fifth holes, split by a birdie on the fourth but by the end of the front nine the South Korean trailed Griffin by four strokes. Another birdie on the 11th extended the 29-year-old Australian&aposs lead to seven strokes as Lee bogeyed the first two holes of the back nine and continued to plummet down the leaderboard. Griffin had bogeys on the 13th and 16th holes but his two-under 69 was still good enough to see him finish the day on nine under overall and two shots ahead of South Korea&aposs Park Sang-hyun. Park carded a three-under 68 to move to seven under, while his compatriot Kim Bi-o and Australia&aposs Aaron Townsend are one shot further back in a tie for third. Kim carded the equal-best score of the day with a bogeyless 67, while Townsend recovered from a quadruple-bogey on the sixth hole to birdie three in a row on the back nine and score 70 to stay in the hunt for the title. Lee has slipped to a tie for fifth on five under, alongside fellow South Korean Choi Ho-sung, while Kang Kyung-nam shot a third-round score of 67 to move up to four under with one day to play. Mo Joong-kyung, Park Ju-hyuk and Song Young-hoon are tied for eighth on three under, while Australia&aposs David McKenzie, Rory Hie of Indonesia and Jason Kang of the USA are all a shot further back.