South African stars slip back

Any hopes Ernie Els and Retief Goosen had of climbing back into contention for The Masters nosedived today when they had a double bogey and triple bogey respectively early in their third rounds at Augusta.

Goosen, one over par overnight, ran up a seven on the 445-yard opening hole and after coming back with a birdie on the long next, the two-time US Open champion then had three successive bogeys from the fourth. At five over par for the day already, he had slumped to joint 44th of the 48 players.

Fellow South African Els, meanwhile, followed five opening pars with a five on the 180-yard sixth and dropped 10 adrift of English leaders Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter.

Sergio Garcia was another quickly in trouble, carving his first drive into sand and with a double-bogey six joined Els on two over par, while Italian Francesco Molinari double-bogeyed the fifth and slipped to one over.

There were others moving in the right direction, though. Heath Slocum charged into ninth place with five birdies in the first eight holes, while fellow American Steve Marino had three in six to be one further back on three under.

As for 16-year-old Matteo Manassero, he had a clear and obvious target when he continued his remarkable ride at The Masters.

The youngest player in the history of the tournament had survived the halfway cut with nothing to spare and as the only one of the six amateurs to do so, was certain to add the silver cup to the silver medal he collected at last year's Open.

But, brilliant though his 13th-place finish was at Turnberry, Manassero needed top 10 to earn a trip to St Andrews this July - and missed out by a shot.

Now the Italian's goal was to climb from 40th into the top 16 and so guarantee himself a return visit to Augusta next April.

He made a good start and with four holes to play he was one under for the round, two over for the championship and in a tie for 35th.