El Campeón Golf Course
(Mission Inn Resort Photo)

Staring on the backside of the El Campeon Golf Course at Mission Inn Resort & Club, Smith got off to an inauspicious with an opening bogey and another three holes later. However, on this day Scott would not let his round spiral out of control and he rolled in birdies on the 16th and 17th holes to return to even-par.

Playing the frontside now, Scott seesawed back and forth between 1-over and even-par throughout the side. Scott bogeyed the 4th and 8th holes but offset the slip ups with 7th and 9th hole birdies.

Smith is entering 2017 off of a strong year in Golfweek events having finished in the top-10 twice and the top-16 once more. His best finish in 2016 was a tie for third at the Golfweek Senior Amateur.

Chris Hall will begin the final round in second place a full three-strokes off the pace at 5-over, first round co-leader Doug Hanzel is 6-over and in third, in fourth it is Dave Maddox at 7-over and Steve Humphrey at 8-over completes the top-5. Jack Hall who shared the first round lead with Hanzel at 1-over is in sixth and 10-over.

Don Russell took over the lead, albeit a narrow one, in the Super Senior Division. Russell has used rounds of 75-75 to reach 6-over and it is at that number that he leads Robert Hess, Don Marsh and Bill Zylstra by one. One shot further back in fifth is Richard Blackburn.

First round leader Ed Pierce dropped into a share of 11th place and he starts the final round seven off the pace.

The name atop the Legends Division leaderboard has remained the same. With rounds of of 74-82 Jim Pfrogner is the pace setter by three-strokes over Edward Craig and Gene Bingman. Four others are five behind in a tie of fifth.