BAD GRIESBACH, Germany – Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand carded a 7-under 64 Saturday to take a one-stroke lead after the third round of the European Open.

Jaidee had eight birdies and a bogey to add to his two rounds of 68. He climbed 14 places for a 13-under total of 200 in southeastern Germany.

Pelle Edberg of Sweden and England’s Ross Fisher and Graeme Storm were all a shot back at 12 under, while Jamie Donaldson of Wales, Magnus A Carlsson of Sweden and Mikko Ilonen of Finland were tied for fifth at 11 under.

Peter Uihlein of the United States and Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen were both 10 under, while veteran Bernhard Langer shot 70 and is tied for 31st.

An even-par performance on the day has Toronto’s Albin Choi T55 at 3-under.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Jesper Parnevik birdied three of his last four holes Friday at Poppy Hills for a share of the lead with Tom Byrum in the Champions Tour’s First Tee Open.

Parnevik had a 5-under 66. Byrum birdied the par-5 18th at Pebble Beach for a 5-under 67.

Parnevik had six birdies and one bogey. The 50-year-old Swede is winless in 12 starts on the 50-and-over tour after winning five times on the PGA Tour.

The 54-year-old Byrum had five birdies in a bogey-free round. He was second last year, a stroke behind John Cook, and is winless in 62 career senior starts.

Mark McNulty was third at 4 under after a 68 at Pebble Beach, the site of the final round.

Colin Montgomerie, Sandy Lyle and Woody Austin shot 68 at Poppy Hills to reach 3 under. Montgomerie is coming off a victory two weeks ago in England in a European Senior Tour event.

Jeff Maggert opened with a 74 at Poppy Hills. He leads the tour with four victories – winning three of his last six starts – and tops the Charles Schwab Cup standings.

Davis Love III had a 75 at Poppy Hills. He won the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship last month to become the third-oldest champion in tour history at 51 years, 4 months, 10 days.

Cook had a 72 at Poppy Hills.

ATLANTA – As Tiger Woods recovers from another operation on his increasingly creaky body, the Tour Championships goes on without him at soggy East Lake.

No big deal.

Tiger’s era is over.

It’s time for everyone – fans, media, sponsors – to fully embrace the new vanguards of the game.

Rory McIlroy. Jordan Spieth. Jason Day.

Golf’s in very capable hands, even more so when you throw Rickie Fowler into the mix.

“It’s been fun to be a part of this whole group,” Day said. “Golf is in such a good spot now with where we are with the youth of the game, how we’re growing the game.’

There have been only a handful of periods during golf’s modern era (since the PGA Championship became a stroke-play event in 1958) when at least three players under the age of 28 have held major titles.

This new Big Three already have seven among them, and it’s only a matter of time before Fowler joins them in that exclusive club.

“I’m going to say the Big Four,” Day interjected, with good reason.

None of these guys is likely to surpass Woods’ legacy, which stands at 14 major titles – more than anyone except Jack Nicklaus.

Woods was a transformational figure, a once-in-a-generation athlete whose drawing power extended beyond the golf course. Many of the folks who cheered him on didn’t know or really care about the game itself. They were simply enamored, rightly so, with someone who played it better than anyone ever had. Being an African-American in a predominantly white sport only heightened Woods’ influence. When he was in the field, the crowds ballooned, the TV ratings skyrocketed.

McIlroy, Spieth and Day won’t have that sort of impact.

But golf should consider itself very fortunate.

The game couldn’t have hoped for much better when it came to filling the post-Tiger void, producing three players who cover all of golf’s major power bases: Europe, the United States and Australia.

McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, won the final two majors of 2014. Spieth, from Texas, took the first two this year. Day, from Australia, won the most recent. The only one to escape that trio’s grasp during that span was the British Open at St. Andrews, where Spieth and Day both finished one shot out of a three-man playoff won by Zach Johnson.

“The back and forth is fantastic,” Day said.

Only 22, Spieth has put together one of the greatest years in the history of the sport. His victories at the Masters and the U.S. Open – not to mention his close call at the British Open and runner-up finish to Day in the PGA Championship – should be enough to give him the PGA Tour’s player of the year award.

The 26-year-old McIlroy was sidetracked by a fluke injury while playing soccer with his mates, forcing him to sit out St. Andrews. But he’s already got four major titles and merely needs the Masters to wrap up his career Grand Slam.

Then there’s Day, whose career was marked by several close calls in the majors until his dominating romp at Whistling Straits last month. The 27-year-old has won two more times since then in the FedEx Cup playoff, surging to No. 1 in the world rankings ahead of McIlroy and Spieth, who went back and forth with the top spot over the previous month.

Get used to that sort of flip-flopping.

“We’re fearless,” said Spieth, whose 66 Friday left him just three shots behind leader Henrik Stenson. “You obviously need a bit of luck, but luck comes from believing luck will come. Luck comes from a self-belief that you have, the ability to close the deal out.”

Already, there are comparisons to another Big Three, maybe the greatest of them all: Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, who dominated the game in the early 1960s and wound up with a total of 34 major championships.

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

With much deeper fields and a broadening talent pool around the world, no threesome is likely to approach those numbers.

“It’s a nice conversation to be a part of,” said McIlroy, six strokes off the pace going to the weekend, while Day was three more shots behind. “Jordan’s sort of like the Jack, methodical and sort of does everything that way. … I would be Gary, because I’m the smallest. And then I guess that would leave Jason as Arnie.”

While McIlroy was only kidding, he wasn’t totally off base.

Personality-wise, this trio is certainly more in line with Nicklaus, Player and Palmer than they are with the usually distant Woods.

Day joked to reporters that if he won the $10 million prize that’s up for grabs this week, “I might buy a few more V-necks from Target.” Spieth photobombed a couple of female fans posing for a picture during a practice round, playfully sticking out his tongue and giving a thumbs-up as he walked into their frame. McIlroy talking openly about a year that didn’t go quite as he had hoped, conceding that “I maybe put a little too much pressure on myself.”

They’re not Tiger, but that’s OK.

Golf is doing just fine without him.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Martin Flores shot a 1-under 70 on Friday to take a one-stroke lead after the second round of the Web.com Tour Finals’ Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship.

Flores, tied for the first-round lead after a 67, had three birdies and two bogeys – all on the back nine – to reach 5-under 137 on Ohio State’s difficult Scarlet Course. The 33-year-old Texan has played the PGA Tour five of the last six seasons.

“I try to do a good job of keeping a good attitude,” Flores said. “Sometimes it’s a struggle, but this game is tough sometimes. … Everybody has a battle within themselves of some kind when they play. It’s overcoming that battle and going out there and executing golf shots.”

The tournament is the third of four events in the series for the top 75 players from the Web.com Tour money list, Nos. 126-200 in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings and non-members who earned enough money to have placed in the top 200 had they been eligible to receive points.

The top 25 players on Web.com regular-season money list earned PGA Tour cards. They are competing against each other for PGA Tour priority, with regular-season earnings counting in their totals. The other players are fighting for another 25 cards based on series earnings.

Flores was 156th in the FedEx Cup and has made $2,900 in the series.

“Every year, if you don’t go out and prove yourself, you’re going to get beat up a little bit,” Flores said. “Sometimes you take a step back to take a couple of leaps forward.”

Sam Saunders, Arnold Palmer’s grandson, was tied for second with Roberto Castro, Luke List and Australia’s Rhein Gibson. List had a 67, and Saunders, Castro and Gibson shot 68.

“I actually find tougher courses better for me,” Gibson said. “I like to grind when par is a good score.”

Saunders was 137th in the FedEx Cup and is tied for ninth on the series money list at $44,000 after one start, a tie for fourth in the opener in Indiana. Castro was 188th in the FedEx Cup and is tied for 11th at $30,118. Gibson was 33rd on the Web.com Tour money list and has made $10,800 in the series. List was 64th on the Web.com Tour money list and missed the cuts in the first two series events.

Last year, Eric Axley took the 25th card with $36,312. In 2013, Bobby Gates was 25th at $33,650.

Sweden’s Henrik Norlander won the pener in Indiana, and Chez Reavie took the second event last week in North Carolina. Norlander was tied for 11th at 2 under after a 71, and Reavie was another stroke back after a 72.

ATLANTA – Two years after Henrik Stenson sailed to victory at the Tour Championship, he has another comfortable lead after 36 holes at East Lake and Jordan Spieth is chasing him.

Back then, Spieth was a 20-year-old rookie.

Now he’s the Masters and U.S. Open champion, and he found a spark in a steady drizzle Friday.

Stenson overcame a few mistakes off the tee and was solid on the back nine for a 2-under 68, stretching his lead to three shots over Spieth going into the weekend and moving closer to his first win of the year – and a $10 million bonus for claiming the FedEx Cup.

“I didn’t feel like it was my best day, but I managed to keep it together and 2 under around here is never bad,” Stenson said.

He doesn’t know anything different. This was his sixth straight round under par at East Lake, a course where the Swede has led after every round he has played.

Stenson, who went wire-to-wire in the Tour Championship in 2013, was at 9-under 131.

Spieth has made only one bogey over two rounds, and a pair of par saves on consecutive holes on the front nine felt just as valuable as his four birdies in a round of 66. The average score was 71.6 on a wet day that yielded only four rounds under par.

Spieth went from the right rough to the left rough on No. 5 and still had 60 yards left and a tree in front of him. He took a risk going through the tree to 6 feet for par, and then rolled in a 20-foot par putt for a bunker save on the par-3 sixth.

“It was huge,” Spieth said about the par saves. “I thought I may have to re-tee, and I was just kind of all over the place at that time. And that third shot I hit on 5, I mean, one of 10, maybe. There was no other option, but it wasn’t necessarily smart. And I had to have the wind blowing this branch back and forth, I had to hit it when it blew it this way or else it would have gone up into it.”

He closed with a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-3 18th to get into the final group.

Paul Casey made bogey from the bunker on the 18th for a 70 and was four shots behind, while British Open champion Zach Johnson birdied three of his last four holes to overcome a double bogey on the par-5 ninth. He had a 70 and was at 4-under 136.

Jason Day, in his first event as No. 1 in the world, finally looked human. He felt flat, wasn’t sharp off the tee or into the greens, and shot a 71. It was his third round over par in his last 10 tournaments, and it left him nine shots behind.

Stenson was four shots clear of Adam Scott after 36 holes when he won the Tour Championship two years ago, with Spieth another shot behind. Spieth made a late run on Sunday and tied for second, capping off a remarkable rookie season.

He is looked at differently now – the Masters and U.S. Open champion and looking more certain to be voted PGA Tour player of the year.

“He’s one of the best players in the world as we know, and had a fantastic year behind him,” Stenson said. “So he’s going to be a very tough contender throughout these last two days. He was good already back then, but he’s certainly not any less good now. We know that much. Once again, I’ve got to focus on my game and bring my game and keep my head down and foot down and press on if I want to leave the guys behind me.”

The biggest challenge figures to be East Lake, especially with more wet conditions in the forecast.

The Bermuda rough can be tricky when it’s dry because it can be difficult to judge how far the ball flies out of it. Wet rough is difficult in a different manner. It makes the course longer off the tee, and longer coming out of the thick grass.

Day hit a 3-wood from 195 yards in the rough on No. 5. Had it been dry conditions like Thursday, Day figures he would have hit 8-iron.

Stenson hit a 4-wood and a gap wedge to a front pin on No. 4 in the opening round. On Friday, he hit 3-wood off the tee and still had 6-iron to a back pin.

“That’s a two-club difference when the air is heavy and you’re not getting as much roll,” he said.

With a tougher golf course, Stenson said there will be a premium on making fewer mistakes. Spieth is happy to be on a course of this nature, especially after three weeks of watching players – mostly Day – pour in one birdie after another in low-scoring affairs.

It was demoralizing at times, especially when Day started 61-63 last week at Conway Farms.

“I wasn’t going to catch him last week,” Spieth said. “I say that now. You tell me that at the time and I’ll get mad at you. I don’t accept that, and that’s my personality. This week is a bit different because there isn’t a 22 under out there.”

But there’s still Stenson, and that could prove just as daunting.

BAD GRIESBACH, Germany – Graeme Storm of England holed out for eagle on the back nine for a share of the lead at the halfway stage of the European Open on Friday.

Storm also had three birdies and a bogey for a round of 67, joining compatriot Ross Fisher and South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel at 10-under-par after the second day.

Fisher had seven birdies and a bogey for a 65, while Schwartzel had five birdies in a 66.

An Byeong-hun of South Korea and Richard McEvoy of England were tied for fourth at nine-under, ahead of South Africa’s Darren Fichardt and Sweden’s Johan Edfors on eight-under.

Germany’s Maximilian Kieffer shot a second successive 68 for his 22nd cut in a row and veteran Bernhard Langer added a 71 to his first round of 68.

Albin Choi of Toronto sits tied for 53rd following a 2-under 69 to move to 3-under in the competition.

As the temperatures cooled and fall was ushered in, Golf Canada’s championship season drew to a close with the conclusion of the World Junior Girls Championship. Team Korea completed a wire-to-wire victory and claimed both the team and individual titles at the second playing of the competition for the world’s best 18-and-under female golfers.

Hye-Jin Choi of Paju-si saved her best performance for last, posting 7 birdies in a bogey-free round to finish 7-under 65 for the lowest round of the tournament.

“Through the first three rounds I was focused on improving my putting, but today I sank a birdie on the first hole and with it, gained a boost of confidence for the round,” said the individual champion. “I felt better out there today than during any other round. I knew I could do it and at the same time, I trusted that my teammates would get it done, as well.”

The 16-year-old credited her competitors for challenging her across the course. “On the 14^th hole I made a birdie and followed it up with a difficult par on the 15^th.  At that point, I had a good feeling that I was going to be the individual winner. Up until then, I was still worried because my playing partners from Sweden and Denmark are great players and they could have made a charge and caught up.”

“Team competition is not very common in golf,” added Choi, whose squad was making its debut in the championship. “So when I get a chance to play as a team and represent my country, my focus is always on the team. When I saw their scores, I was so relieved and was then able to turn my attention to winning the individual title. I am so happy and proud of us.”

The remaining two members of the Korean contingent completed the competition tied for fourth at 1-under 287. Eun-Soo Jang of Chang Hyung shot a final-round of even-par 72 to count towards her team’s winning total of 22-under 554. The final member of the squad, Shin Hye Kim of Icheon, carded a 73.

“This is a really big win for us,” said head coach Sang-Won Ko, whose trio was the only team to all finish with under-par rounds. “Coming into the tournament, we never expected that we would win. Our top priority was to learn since the environment and course would be so different to us. I am so happy with the result. It is an added bonus to win because we learned so much during the week. I am really proud of all of my players.”

“Hye-Jin was crazy today!” said Ko, when asked about the World Junior Girls champion. “I have mentioned during the week that she struggled with her putting, but today it was simply amazing.”

Finishing second in the individual competition was Cecilie Bofill of Denmark. The native of Silkeborg began the day tied for third, but tallied five birdies en route to a 3-under 69. The 17-year-old moved to 5-under 286 in the competition to trade places in the standings with Filippa Moork of Sweden. The native of Karlstad was 2-over on the day and finished 2-under overall to claim sole possession of third.

Bofill’s performance coupled with Frederickshavn native Puk Lyng Thomsen’s 1-over 73 propelled Denmark into the runner-up position in the team competition at 4-under 572. Four strokes shy of second was Team Sweden which counted identical rounds of 2-over 74 from Moork and Frida Kinhult of Fiskebackskil to finish even-par 576.

Kathrine Chan led the Canadians in the field with a 3-over 75 performance. The native of Richmond, B.C., finished the championship at 15-over 303.

Tournament Director Mary Beth McKenna echoed the sentiments of all those involved when asked to reflect on the competition. “In speaking with the players and coaches this past week, I think this event was a tremendous success. From the coaching summit and the skills clinic to an entertaining and exciting tournament – I truly believe this was a very positive experience for not only the golfing community in Ottawa, but also the development of junior girls’ golf on the international stage.”

Additional information on the 2015 World Junior Girls Championship can be found on the tournament’s official website at www.worldjuniorgirls.com.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Martin Flores birdied his final hole for a 4-under 67 and a share of the first-round lead with Alex Aragon on Thursday in the Web.com Tour Finals’ Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship.

Flores and Aragon each had five birdies and a bogey on Ohio State’s difficult Scarlet Course.

The tournament is the third of four events in the series for the top 75 players from the Web.com Tour money list, Nos. 126-200 in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings and non-members who earned enough money to have placed in the top 200 had they been eligible to receive points. The top 25 players on Web.com regular-season money list earned PGA Tour cards. They are competing against each other for PGA Tour priority, with regular-season earnings counting in their totals. The other players are fighting for another 25 cards based on series earnings.

Aragon finished 68th on the Web.com Tour regular-season money list and has earned $4,421 in the first two series events.

“A lot of good golf with bad scoring,” Aragon said about his season. “I’ve been working really hard on trying to get off the tee boxes. I’ve taken a lot of penalty strokes the last month or so. Keeping it in play off the tee has been my focus for the last month.”

Flores was 156th in the FedEx Cup and has made $2,900 in the series.

“I’m happy with the start,” Flores said. “Most of the year I’ve played three good days and one terrible day. That’s how I’ve been and I’ve been trying to turn that around and have more consistency. I’m happy with how I did today, but past that, I’m not really looking much ahead.”

Steve Marino, Aaron Watkins, Blake Adams, Brad Elder and Derek Ernst were tied for third at 68.

Marino was 19th in the Web.com Tour regular season and has made $79,088 in the series to move up to eighth.

Sweden’s Henrik Norlander won the series opener in Indiana, and Chez Reavie took the second event last week in Davidson, North Carolina. Norlander and Reavie were tied for eighth at 69.

“It’s brutal,” Norlander said about the Scarlet Course. “It’s shocking. I think it’s the toughest golf course in the world. I haven’t played many tougher. You can’t relax on one single hole. There is not one single hole where you can get away with hitting a bad shot and still make par. Here, if you lose focus, you’re making bogeys and doubles quickly.”

Reavie agreed.

“This course is brutal. Every hole has teeth,” Reavie said. “You have to be on your game. You have to be putting well and you have to be chipping well. It’s very, very difficult.”

ATLANTA – Just getting to East Lake is the challenge for Henrik Stenson. Playing the golf course appears to be the easy part.

Two years after his wire-to-wire victory to capture the FedEx Cup, Stenson was just as dominant Thursday until he stalled at the end and had to settle for a 7-under 63 and a two-shot lead over Paul Casey in the Tour Championship.

Stenson ripped a 4-wood from 288 yards to 25 feet and made the eagle putt on the par-5 ninth to go out in 29. He added two more birdies to reach 8 under through 12 holes until he made pars the rest of the way and his lone bogey on the 17th.

Even so, it was just the start he wanted on a course that he has figured out. Stenson opened with a 64 two years ago, stretched his lead to as many as nine shots in the third round and joined Tom Watson as the only wire-to-wire winners of the Tour Championship.

He missed last year when he failed to get into the top 30 who qualify for the FedEx Cup finale, and knew he only needed to get back to have a chance.

“I wanted to get out of the blocks quickly, and I surely did,” Stenson said.

Jason Day, in his first tournament as the No. 1 player in the world, stayed with Stenson until one shot. Day birdied his opening three holes, but his drive on the par-4 fifth hole sailed through the trees on the right, over the fence and out-of-bounds. He made triple bogey and never really got back on track. He shot a 69 and was six behind.

“I wish I could say that I was a machine and I can hit it straight down the gut every single time, 315 yards,” Day said. “But unfortunately, as humans we’re going to make errors. … To make triple was pretty disappointing, but it’s early on in the tournament, so I can’t dwell on that.”

Rory McIlroy started slowly, finished the front nine with three straight birdies and had a 66 to join British Open champion Zach Johnson.

Jordan Spieth took the stress out of his game and rarely was out of position. He just didn’t hit it close enough for birdie chances, made three of them and shot a 68 to join a large group that included Brooks Koepka and Brandt Snedeker.

For the longest time, Stenson looked uncatchable.

The trouble at East Lake is the Bermuda rough, which is why the powerful Swede leans so heavily on his 3-wood off the tee. He kept it in play, hit iron shots as crisp as ever and made plenty of putts. It was an ideal combination for scoring, until the final hour.

His round stalled with a 4-iron that missed the green on the par-5 15th, and his bunker shot came out hot and left him 20 feet away. He made par, saved par from a tough lie in the rough at the 16th and missed a 6-foot par putt on the 17th.

“I can’t really play the front nine any better – very similar to what I did in 2013 when I started with a good score and shot 5 under on the front,” Stenson said. “So hopefully, the rest of the week can be as successful as it was then.”

Stenson is No. 4 in the FedEx Cup and has been a big topic of conversation this week. He could finish as low as third and still win the $10 million bonus without having won a tournament all year. But the Swede looked at it from a simpler form of math. As one of the top five seeds, he only has to win the Tour Championship to take home golf’s biggest payoff, and that’s all he was thinking about.

“I’ll be happy on Sunday if I were to finish second and win the FedEx Cup,” he said. “I’ll be smiling more if I got two trophies, but I’ll deal with one, as well. But at this point, I’m here to try and win this Tour Championship for the second time, and it would be great to pull that off. Still a long ways to go. We’re only one round down and as we know, a lot of things can happen in 54 holes.”

It was a big turnaround for Casey, who had to pull out of the Deutsche Bank Championship three weeks ago with a sore back. He treated it, worked on his posture and felt as good as new at East Lake.

“It allows me to drive the ball well around here and that was really the key to getting around,” Casey said.

Sixteen players in the 28-man field broke par in easy scoring conditions, with cloud cover and some drizzle late in the day. The biggest buzz was for Day and Spieth, in the same group for the eighth time since the final round of the PGA Championship.

Day’s triple bogey erased those three early birdies and he made only two birdies over his final 13 holes, including a two-putt on the par-5 15th hole.

BAD GRIESBACH, Germany – Benjamin Hebert of France and Bernd Wiesberger of Austria shared the lead at seven-under-par after the opening day of the European Open on Thursday.

Hebert fired eight birdies on the Bad Griesbach course and had a bogey on the seventh to finish the day at 64. Wiesberger had seven birdies and no bogeys to tie for the lead.

Two Englishmen had a share of third place at six-under. Graeme Storm shot six birdies in his opening round and Richard Bland opened his round by carding birdies in each of his first four holes.

Also at six-under were Richard Green of Australia, Darren Fichardt of South Africa and Richard Finch of England.

A group of 11 golfers followed at five-under, including German veteran Bernhard Langer.

Team Canada Young Pro Squad member Albin Choi completed the day at 1-under 70 to sit T74.