With three rounds of the Dogwood Invitational completed, Ashton Poole sits atop the leaderboard after shooting an 8-under 64 on Friday. Going into the final round this afternoon, the University of Virginia junior is 17 under with a 199.
But he hasn’t run away with the title quite yet. Poole will have to battle a handful of collegiate golfers who trail by only a few strokes. William Nottingham, a rising junior at Clemson, is right on Poole’s heels at 15 under. Nottingham recorded a hole-in-one on the sixth hole Friday, but a bogey on the 17th put him at 201 overall to give Poole a slight cushion at the Druid Hills Golf Club.
Dacula native S.M. Lee rounds out the top three, coming in at 13 under after a pair of birdies on the final two holes of his third round. Lee leads after the second round, but two bogeys on the front nine took a toll on his third-round score.
Jacob Solomon of Auburn is a stroke behind Lee at a 12-under 204, and three Georgians are locked in a tie for fifth. Alpharetta natives Luke Schniederjans of Georgia Tech and Chandler Eaton of Duke recorded identical scores of 205, while Jake Fendt, a Kennesaw State senior and the first-round leader, finished with a 2-under 70 on Friday to tie the competitors from the ACC.
Reining champion Lloyd Jefferson Go is notably absent among this year’s front-runners. Go barely made the cut into the final round after shooting 3 over Friday and currently sits in a three-way tie for 44th.
Poole and Nottingham will be the final pair to take to the greens at 11:50 a.m.
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