Golf Feb 17, 2026

PGA Tour: Rory McIlroy in double and triple-bogey woe at Pebble Beach as Akshay Bhatia leads ahead of wild Sunday weather

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By Admin
Sports Journalist
PGA Tour: Rory McIlroy in double and triple-bogey woe at Pebble Beach as Akshay Bhatia leads ahead of wild Sunday weather

Rory McIlroy tumbled out of contention at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am after a triple-bogey nightmare in Saturday's third round.

The defending champion made a promising start with two birdies on the opening three holes, but unravelled spectacularly on the fourth.

A wayward drive, a duffed recovery and a poor bunker shot contributed to a horror three-over-par seven.

Four more birdies, a bogey on 10 and a double-bogey at the last meant McIlroy broke even to lie 10 shots off the lead held by American world No 48 Akshay Bhatia on 19-under.

World No 1 Scottie Scheffler had a better day thanks to a bogey-free 67 but is still eight shots off the lead. His best hope now appears to be extending his streak of top 10s on the PGA Tour to 18.

Collin Morikawa hit the round of the day, a 62 to tie for second with Jake Knapp and Sepp Straka, two shots behind Bhatia.

England's Tommy Fleetwood is tied for seventh, five shots off the lead.

Having built a five-shot lead by the turn thanks to a storming start which saw him birdie six of the first seven holes, overnight co-leader Bhatia was two-over through his last 10 and heads into Sunday with four players within three shots of him.

"All in all, yeah, weird day," Bhatia said. "Felt like I lost some ground toward the end, but then I realised it just played so much harder for some of the guys that were in some of the last tee times."

And the worst might be yet to come with Sunday's starting times having been moved forward by one hour for the final round with a forecast of strong wind and rain.

"It's not going to be pretty at all times. You're going to have some funky stuff happen and just have to deal with it," Knapp said.

"I think anytime you get bad elements and stuff like that you just have to do a good job of not letting it bug you."

The prelude to Sunday might have come in the last hour.

Jacob Bridgeman, who shot 68 and was three behind, played from the beach on the 18th. Min Woo Lee (70) was 75 yards across the fairway in the hedges and finally decided to take a penalty drop on the cart path. And then his golf ball kept moving on his putt. It took some 50 minutes to play the hole.

Hisatsune, who had a 74, kept having to replace his golf ball on the 18th green because it kept moving. He missed his 6-foot par putt, and then waited more than 10 seconds because it looked as though the wind might blow it into the cup.

Watch the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am throughout the week live on Your Site. Live coverage concludes on Sunday from 4pm on Your Site Golf. or .

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