Charlie Saxon takes one-stroke lead into final round at Lincoln Land Championship presented by LRS

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Charlie Saxon carded his third consecutive bogey-free round with a 3-under 68 on moving day at the Lincoln Land Championship presented by LRS to reach 18-under for the tournament. He takes a one-stroke lead over past champion Anders Albertson entering the final round.

“It was a weird day; I didn’t hit it as well today as I did the last couple of days, but I really hung in there with the putter,” said Saxon. “The putter was the MVP…It wasn’t the cleanest round, though my scorecard was lacking bogeys, but I’m happy with it and happy moving forward and keeping guys having to chase me.”

Saxon has led after each of the first three rounds with rounds of 61-66-68 thus far. The 27-year-old University of Oklahoma alum is looking to become the first wire-to-wire champion on the Korn Ferry Tour since the 2018 season. Over the past two months, Saxon has often found himself atop the leaderboard but has seemingly taken himself out of contention with one bad round at several tournaments.

“This was the round today where in past events I didn’t quite make the putts or get up and down to hold it together,” reflected Saxon, who has been inside the top-10 on the leaderboard after 12 of his last 16 rounds on Tour. “So I’m happy about that. It wasn’t a perfect day and it wasn’t quite what I had in mind coming in to today, but we’re moving forward and I’m happy with where I stand.”

While he has yet to break through on the Korn Ferry Tour, Saxon has plenty of experience winning. He won twice while at Oklahoma, one on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica and four times as a on PGA TOUR Series-China (where he is still the all-time leading money winner).

“Winning is hard,” laughed Saxon. “You have to play great golf, to win you literally have to beat everybody in the field…Just playing in contention a bunch of times on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica and in China, it’s something I’ve learned. Not to get lost in the moment. It takes reps in that situation and I’ve been fortunate to learn from failures and successes.”

To claim his first Korn Ferry Tour title on Sunday, Saxon will have to outlast someone who has had tremendous success at this tournament. Georgia Tech alum Anders Albertson finished one stroke shy of a playoff at the Lincoln Land Championship in 2017, then broke through with his first win at the tournament in 2018.

After an up-and-down first round, Albertson has carded 13 birdies and an eagle over his past 36 holes. He holed out for eagle at the par-4 eighth hole en route to a 65 on Saturday.

“That was a great wedge on No. 8 and it happened to go in, so that was obviously a bonus,” said Albertson. “I played well on the back side and birdied the par-5s. This is my second day in a row to go bogey-free which is always nice.”

Trailing Saxon (by two) and Albertson (by one) are rookie Austen Truslow and Australian Brett Drewitt. Ben Kohles rounds out the top five at 14-under, four strokes off the lead.

The tournament will conclude with the final round on Sunday with tee times from 8:00 a.m. to 10:01 a.m. off of the first and 10th tees.