Hojgaard retains slender lead despite nightmare start

Rasmus Hojgaard bounced back from a nightmare start on Saturday to head into the final round of the Cazoo Open de France with a one-shot lead. The Dane saw his commanding six-shot halfway advantage cut to one stroke in the early stages of his third round after running up a quintuple-bogey eight at the short second hole, having found the water three times. The shell-shocked 21-year-old then sent his tee-shot at the next hole straight into the water and made a bogey there to surrender the lead.

FULL LEADERBOARD

But he recovered with birdies at the sixth, eighth and 11th as well as several important par saves to return to the top of the leaderboard. And Hojgaard mixed two birdies with two bogeys over the last seven holes to post a 74 and finish the day on 12 under par. A two-shot swing on the final hole saw George Coetzee get within one of Hojgaard as he finished his 68 with a birdie courtesy of a magnificent approach shot.

Ireland's Jonathan Caldwell sits in tied-16th place on five-under par after a tidy round of 68. The Bangor golfer registered six birdies in total, on 2, 4, 5, 9, 10 and 14, throwing in bogeys on 4, 7 and 18. Home favourite Paul Barjon and Belgian Thomas Pieters were another shot further back in a tie for third on 10 under. Hojgaard remains in contention for a wire-to-wire victory as he goes in search of a fourth DP World Tour title. He said: "It's obviously not the Saturday I wanted but at the same time I'm just happy that I stayed in there, managed to make some birdies and I still have the lead. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow. "I'll just be patient. I showed out there today that by being patient I managed to make a few birdies and not let it affect me too much. Hopefully I'll get off to a better start