If you hear Nicolai Højgaard tell, getting to 61 is something you can do without even realizing it.
The 25-year-old Dane tied the course record at Detroit Golf Club during his third round on Saturday — the latest player to hit the magical 61 number in the Motor City this week.
Peter Malnati shot his career-low mark on Thursday, and was the first to get there this week. Cameron Young followed suit with a 9 under of his own early Friday, propelled by a string of six straight birdies.
“Don’t know if I at any point knew it was going to be a special round. I just sort of tried to give myself chances,” said Højgaard, who has four T-10s on Tour this year but is still searching for his elusive first career win.
Some great putting on the back nine helped get him into position where he will threaten once again.
“I just felt like I played nicely all day and yeah, suddenly it was a 61,” he said.
Højgaard finished runner-up to Gary Woodland at the Texas Children’s Houston Open in April. And then again, a month later, found himself T-2 with Rickie Fowler as they watched Kristoffer Reitan win the Truist at Quail Hollow.
“I’ll have to see where I’m at at the end of the day,” said the current clubhouse leader at 12 under. “If I can play somewhat of what I did today, I like my chances tomorrow. But again, I’m not too focused on that. Today, I stayed present, I didn’t get ahead of myself; and, yeah, that’s the game plan for tomorrow. Take one hole at a time.”
Like the rest of the field, Højgaard’s final round will be impacted by rain storms that are moving through the Detroit area overnight and into Sunday morning. The PGA Tour announced Saturday a shift to groupings for the final round.
