Palmetto: Reach leads after 3rd round

AIKEN, SC (July 22, 2011) -- Nicholas Reach is on the verge of his second amateur title of the year, leading by one with one round to play at the Palmetto Amateur. Reach, who also won the inaugural Junior Invitational this year, a gathering of the world’s top 54 juniors, leads Will McCurdy by one shot and Corbin Mills by two. Mills, who won this year’s U.S. Public Links Championship and Players Amateur, backed up his second-round 66 with a 68. Reach bogeyed Nos. 3-5, but rebounded with birdies at three of the ensuing five holes. He turned in a third-round 69. Reach, 18, is an incoming freshman at Georgia. Making the biggest move of the day was Malaysia’s Arie Ahmad Fauzi, who shot a 64 that included six birdies on the back nine at Palmetto Golf Club. Fauzi, a junior at Tulsa, won the Malaysian Amateur Stroke Play Championship in 2008.