Cromwell, CT (Best E Casino) - Stewart Cink birdied his final two holes Saturday to post a five-under 65 and stay atop the leaderboard after three rounds of the Travelers Championship.
Cink finished 54 holes at 15-under-par 195 and he is two shots clear of Heath Slocum, who carded a 64 on Saturday.
Kevin Streelman, a surprise first-round leader last week at the U.S. Open, fired a 62 in round three and is tied for third place with Vijay Singh (64), Tommy Armour III (65), Kenny Perry (65) and defending champion Hunter Mahan (67). That group came in at minus-12.
Saturday was a day for low scores at the TPC River Highlands. Of the top-14 players on the leaderboard, Mahan's 67 was the worst score by two strokes.
"Today the course was relatively gettable," said Streelman. "They gave us an opportunity to attack a little bit and the greens are running so smooth right now that scoring was possible."
Scoring went so low that Cink, the overnight leader, was behind Streelman, who was in the clubhouse already, before Cink even hit one ball.
On the second hole, Cink kicked in a three-foot birdie putt, then really got his flat stick going. At No. 5, Cink drained a 17-foot birdie putt and followed with a 19-footer for birdie at six.
Cink hit a poor drive at the seventh that brought trees into play. He punched a six-iron under the branches, but could not get the ball to stop on the putting surface. Cink pitched to eight feet, but failed to convert the par- saving putt.
That bogey dropped him back into a tie with Streelman for the lead. At the ninth, Cink sank a long birdie putt to move into first ahead of Streelman and also Singh, who made a move with five birdies and an eagle through 15 holes.
Cink hit a solid tee ball to 11 feet at the par-three 11th. He rolled in the birdie putt to move one clear of Singh, who bogeyed the last with a sand-wedge in his hand from the fairway.
Cink parred his next four holes before hitting his tee shot into the water at 16. After his penalty, Cink hit a good shot from the drop zone to three feet and holed it for a bogey, which dropped him into a tie with Slocum for first place.
At the par-four 17th, Cink played his approach to 12 feet and stroked home the birdie putt. He hit a long drive that nearly went across a road bisecting the 18th fairway. Cink took a free drop due to standing on the road and wedged his approach to a foot.
Cink tapped in for the great finish, two-shot lead and to leave behind a bad bogey.
"You can't totally erase mistakes, but they move to the back of your mind with that finish," said Cink, who missed the tournament's 54-hole record by two strokes.
The trophy engraver may want to hold off on etching Cink's name. He held the third-round lead at the PODS Championship earlier this year, even building a four-shot lead in the final round, but five bogeys handed Sean O'Hair the title.
Two weeks before that, Cink made the final of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. Unfortunately, Cink met Tiger Woods in that match and got trounced, 8 & 7.
"If I said it wouldn't weigh on my mind, I'd be in denial," acknowledged Cink, a four-time PGA Tour winner, including this event in 1997.
D.J. Trahan (62), Chad Campbell (62), Michael Letzig (63), Chris DiMarco (64), Jon Mills (65), Brenden Pappas (65) and Fred Funk (65) share eighth at minus-11.
