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By Kent Gray
Brooks Koepka remained in a holding pattern on moving day but still believes he can make a late charge for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship’s $1.16 million winners cheque on Saturday.

After opening the Rolex Series event with a 67, the world No.2 has patched together successive rounds of 70 to be -9, eight shots off Shane Lowry’s thus far wire-to-wire pace.

The 28-year-old Ryder Cupper will need to go deep into the red Saturday at Abu Dhabi Golf Club and hope Lowry and co. come back to him. But as he’s shown with his success in the bigs, if there is a man for a hard job it is Koepka.

“There absolutely is,” the three-time major champion said when asked if he’d garnered any satisfaction from being -9 despite the ho-hum scoring of the past two days, by his exalted standards anyway.

“It’s one of those weeks where I’m kind of waiting for something to happen. You just have to stay patient. I feel like get on a hot run, 8- or 9-under. Hopefully that’s tomorrow.

“I feel like I’ve played well and struck it pretty much flawless, maybe one or two bad swings the whole week. It’s one of those weeks I’ve hit a lot of good putts but just burned the edges. That happens. Just keep striking it well and hitting good putts and hopefully they drop.”

Koepka admitted the prospect of leap-frogging back over Justin Rose as world No.1 was spurring him along.

“I just focus on the job at hand, but it does mean a lot to me. I think that’s such a cool honour, to be the best player in the world. I don’t take it lightly. It’s something that, every day, I’m trying to get better and improve on that and I’d like to gain that lead,” he said.

“But you know, with Rosey, he’s playing so well. I’ve just got to keep doing what I’m doing and hopefully squeak out a few W’s.”