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TSN Senior Reporter

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There was some good and some not so good, but when she signed her scorecard at the end of the third round of the AIG Women’s Open, Brooke Henderson accomplished one thing: she gave herself a chance going into the final round. 

After logging six birdies and four bogeys in calm but wet conditions, Henderson signed for a 2-under 70, keeping her within reach of the top of the leaderboard. 

“Did a lot of good things today, which is really nice,” said Henderson.

Things did not start well for Henderson on Saturday. Her approach shot on the first hole came up woefully short, leaving her about 75 feet from the pin. Three putts later she marked down a bogey and dropped four shots off the pace. 

But a run of three birdies starting on the sixth closed the gap, bringing her within one shot of top spot. She ended her front nine with an unfortunate bogey to make the turn at 5-under. 

The birdies returned on the back nine as Henderson rolled in putts on the 10th, 12th and 14th holes, pushing her score to 8-under. 

The difficult closing holes at Carnoustie lived up to expectations for Henderson. An errant drive on the 15th hole found a grassy mound and her attempt to extract it onto the green misfired and she ended up in a deep greenside bunker. That led to a bogey and, after a good up-and-down par-save on 16, there was another bogey on the difficult 17th hole.

A nervy up-and-down from beside the green on 18 closed out her day. “The closing holes are definitely the toughest holes out here and especially when it started raining, it got a little bit trickier,” Henderson stated. “But I'm happy how I played today and how I battled coming in. Made a couple up-and-down saves on 16 and 18, hopefully make a lot of birdies tomorrow and hit good shots and see what happens.”

To have a shot at winning on Sunday, Henderson will need to play mistake-free golf and take advantage of the par-5 holes. She showed she can make enough birdies to contend but she’ll need a helpful putter, some good luck with the linksy bounces and possibly some help from those near the top of the leaderboard. 

Weather will also be a factor, as it always seems to be in Scotland. 

“Definitely depends on what the weather is doing and the conditions of the golf course,” Henderson said of trying to devise a game plan for Sunday. “It's changing all the time so you have to adapt. I feel like for the most part we are hitting quality shots and our game plan is pretty solid. Excited to tee up tomorrow and hopefully good things can happen.”

Henderson has never had a top-10 finish at the Open Championship, the only major in which she can say that. Outside of a tie for 11th in 2018, she’s never been better than a tie for 41st. Last year, in her return after the eight-month pandemic pause, she missed the cut.