The PGA Tour Leaderboard is back in the US and the Dubai Desert Classic has Rory McIlroy two shots back of Stephen Gallacher along with Tiger Woods a bit farther back in the Euro golf tournament and the European Tour is live from the Emirates GC in the Middle East and the final round is coming on Sunday and the Northern Irish star is in position to win.
Gallacher could be the first golfer to win the tournament in back to back years after he took it last season and while Woods is back down in 37th at five under and 11 shots back, it is a great improvement from his first tournament of the season. Woods was two under for the day and was sharp on his tough holes and now heading into the last day he had a 70 and is in position to finish under for the tournament after not playing on Sunday last time out. Gallacher had a great day on Saturday and he ended up putting in seven birdies in just a nine hole stretch on the round and put himself ahead of McIlroy, who took the lead into the weekend and he put himself in position at two strokes ahead to try and win the tournament in back to back years.
Gallacher had an eagle on the back nine with seven birdies and he put himself in the lead on the 25th anniversary of the tournament and he had seven straight par scores at one point and also had four birdies to end the day on the back end. Gallacher set a milestone with the European Tour score for the lowed score for nine holes by putting up a 28 and now he has to hold off McIlroy on the last day of the tournament to get the victory. McIlroy knows this course and he won here back in 2009, while Woods is a previous winner as well and he likely is too far back to get into contention on Sunday. McIlroy was under the weather on Friday and still was able to put in a nice round and ended up with a 63 and that was his best score in quite some time.
Back in America the Phoenix Open has Bubba Watson leading the way and he is at 15 under with a two shot lead and that could be a good enough score for him to stay ahead on Sunday. Woods comes into the final day in Dubai looking to finish strong and it comes after he had a rough go of it at the Farmers Insurance Open last week and he didn't make the secondary cut and was left to wonder what went wrong and now he has played much better in Dubai. Woods had a 68, 73 and a 70 at the tournament and it puts him in a much better place than he was at this time at Torrey Pines and now he has the chance to finish strong and get back on track early in the season.
Woods won five times last season and one was early at the Farmers Insurance Open and he is looking to try and win a major for the first time since he took the US Open at Torrey Pines. Woods won back his number one ranking from McIlroy last year and now he is looking to hang onto that for a while.
