Golf: Campbell looks to end on high note

Michael Campbell will look to end his European Tour season on a positive note when the final round of the WGC - American Express Championship gets underway in England later today.

Campbell recorded four birdies in a third round two under par 69 to finish on 209 overnight (NZ time), 15 shots adrift over runaway leader Tiger Woods in the US$7.5m ($11.55m) event being played on The Grove course near Watford, north of London.

Campbell fought back from Friday's disappointment when he bogeyed the last three holes in a score of 71 to kick-start his third round by holing a 25-foot birdie putt at the second ahead of more birdies at the 10th, 14th and 15th holes.

Last year's US Open champion dropped his only shots at eight and 18.

"My game is forever getting closer whilst today I again walked off the course feeling as though I didn't earn as much as I should have," he said.

"It was a pretty tough day out there today but two under par is still going forward even though I feel it could have been a few shots lower.

"But Tiger is keeping everyone at arms reach this week and the thing about Tiger, is that when he is on song he's very, very hard to beat.

"I managed to beat him last year at the US Open but as for this week, he looks unstoppable."

The World Golf Championship is Campbell's last in Europe this year.

After a week's break, he will head to China for the VW Masters.

From there he will return to his Sydney residence for three weeks before heading back to China and Shanghai for the HSBC Champions event, the first event of the 2007 European Tour international schedule.

SCORES

3rd round leaderboard from the WGC:

194 Tiger Woods (US) 63 64 67
200 Adam Scott (Australia) 67 68 65
201 Brett Quigley (US) 70 64 67, Jim Furyk (US) 67 65 69
202 Stewart Cink (US) 65 67 70
203 Ian Poulter (Britain) 64 71 68, Henrik Stenson (Sweden) 68 67 68, David Howell (Britain) 66 66 71
204 Trevor Immelman (South Africa) 68 68 68, Ernie Els (South Africa) 65 70 69, Padraig Harrington (Ireland) 64 69 71
205 Luke Donald (Britain) 68 70 67, Lucas Glover (US) 69 68 68, Brett Wetterich (US) 70 66 69
206 Carl Pettersson (Sweden) 69 70 67
207 Arron Oberholser (US) 69 72 66, Stuart Appleby (Australia) 71 66 70
208 Angel Cabrera (Argentina) 71 70 67, Colin Montgomerie (Britain) 72 67 69, Jose Maria Olazabal (Spain) 70 67 71, Jyoti Randhawa (India) 66 71 71
209 Michael Campbell (New Zealand) 69 71 69, Chris DiMarco (US) 69 70 70, Johan Edfors (Sweden) 70 68 71, Thongchai Jaidee (Thailand) 71 67 71




- NZPA