By Kent Gray
Tommy Fleetwood is right where he wants to be, well almost anyway.

A few too many putts defied gravity for the 27-year-old Englishman to be totally satisfied with his third round 67 Saturday but it gives the reigning Race to Dubai champion a shot at defending the Falcon trophy and that’s about all he could have asked for starting the week.

“Yeah, being in contention on a Sunday is just where everybody wants to be,” said Fleetwood who will start the final round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship presented by EGA at -15, two shots adrift of co-leaders Thomas Pieters and Ross Fisher.

“So far, so good. Really good place, and a couple of the guys played some unbelievable golf and you can’t do anything about that. But for me, it’s been a really solid week so far.

“Happy with my game and that’s just what I’ve got to go out and do tomorrow. Go out with the same attitude and hopefully I’ll swing it the same and have a lot more chances and we’ll see what happens.”

Fleetwood went from -9 to -11 with back-to-back birdies to start his third round before a run of seven pars stalled his progress. There were three more birdies coming home in a bogey-free loop of The National but plenty of shots left behind too.

“Well, whenever you hit it really well, unless you shoot 60, you’re going to feel like you leave some out there. Yeah, there was a patch sort of 11, 12, 13, 14, where I could have holed a couple, but great putt on 15. Holed a really good par save on 17 too.

“I guess you can look at it both ways. The main thing for me was I was really pleased how I hit it today. Had a good warm-up this morning. I was a lot sharper today, swinging a lot better and just hit — most of the time, hitting some shots that I wanted to, so that was much better.”

There’s wind forecast for Sunday and Fleetwood had a sneak peak of what might be to come late in his round.

“Let’s see what the weather brings. Was surprised it was pumping in on the last two [holes]. Got really caught out with that 6-iron on 17. Hit a beautiful shot there, comes up No Man’s Land [before he saved par with a nice up and down].

“We knew the weather’s coming the last two days. The weather has been perfect so the course has been there for the taking. Tomorrow, if it’s what the forecast shows, it will be playing a lot tougher.

“It’s not really – [well] it is about how many you are behind – but I can’t control what they are doing [the other contenders]. For me, played great today, I’m going to take that into tomorrow, and it will be very satisfying to go back-to-back if I can.”