Damian Ulrich delighted the locals by surging into contention on the third day of the Rolex Trophy.
The Swiss star, who is playing in this week’s limited-field event under a sponsor’s invitation, shot the lowest round of the day at Golf de Genève, in the Swiss city of Geneva, to climb to 13 under par.
That moved the Zurich native ten places up the leaderboard into a tie for third, three shots behind the leading duo of Jens Dantorp and José-Filipe Lima.
The highlight of Ulrich’s six-birdie round of 65 was an eagle three at the 13th hole, where he holed out with a wedge.
Ulrich said: “I’m very happy. I’ve been playing nicely the last few weeks and for the first two rounds, but just couldn’t hole as many putts as I would’ve liked. But today the putter got hot, so that was the main difference.
“I got a little bit nervous towards the end of the round, because I haven’t shot too many rounds in the low 60s this season, so I didn’t want to ruin my hard work by making some silly mistakes. But fortunately I managed to hold it together, and I’m now in a very good position going into the final day.
“At the moment I feel very calm, and if I can keep my focus for tomorrow I should be fine. It’s my birthday on Sunday, so it would be a very nice early present if I could manage to play as well again on the final day! But we’ll see what happens, I’m just going to try to stay in the moment and not think about anything else but hitting the next shot.”
