SANDY — Brett Wetterich has always been known as a long hitter.
Playing the PGA Tour in 2002, he ranked No. 8 in driving distance and this year he is No. 2 on the Nationwide Tour with a 315.8-yard average. In this week's Envirocare Utah Classic, Wetterich has been hitting the ball in places that many longtime watchers at Willow Creek Country Club have never seen before.
Wetterich's long hitting paid off Saturday when he fired a 7-under par 65 to grab a two-shot lead heading into today's final round of the $450,000 event.
The 31-year-old from Florida stands at 15-under par 201, two shots ahead of Chris Sessler and three ahead of Scott Peterson
Second-round leader Jody Bellflower never found any consistency Saturday and his 73 dropped him into a tie for fourth at 205 with David McKenzie and Tyler Williamson.
The two Utah professionals, Garrett Clegg and Steve Schneiter, both fell off the pace Saturday and stand at 207 and 209 heading into today's round, while former BYU golfer and PGA Tour winner Rick Fehr stands at 212.
With the weather getting warmer and the course drying out, the Willow Creek greens weren't holding as well Saturday. However, Wetterich was hitting shorter irons into each hole, which gave him an advantage.
"If I'm hitting a 9-iron as opposed to someone hitting a 7-iron, it's a big difference," said Wetterich.
It made a really big difference on the par-5s, of which there are five at Willow Creek. Wetterich made eagles on two of them and just missed on a third.
He eagled the 551-yard first hole, needing just a 7-iron for his second shot and sinking a 10-foot putt. His eagle putt at the 586-yard No. 10 hole just slid past and at the 588-yard No. 17 hole, he needed just a 6-iron to the green, where he made a 12-foot eagle.
Wetterich is happy to have a two-shot lead with one round to play.
When he won the Chitimacha Louisiana Open last year, he also had a two-stroke lead going into the final round and ended up winning by three.
"I'll just play the same way tomorrow," he said.
Wetterich ranks No. 40 on the Nationwide money list this year with just less than $100,000 in earnings, but if he wins the $81,000 first prize, he'll jump into the all-important top 15 on the money list, a group that gets exempted onto the PGA Tour the following year.
A win would really mean a lot to Sessler, who has only won $28,000 this year in his rookie season on the Nationwide Tour. The 34-year-old was a baseball player in college and worked as an account executive for eight years before giving professional golf a try.
After tying for fourth in the season-opening tournament in Panama, it's been all downhill for Sessler, who has only made four cuts in 15 tournaments and never finished better than 42nd.
"It's been kind of a struggle," he said.
Sessler started the day tied for fourth at 8-under and was still at the same number after 11 holes. It wasn't looking too good at the par-5 12th when he hit his second shot over the green where he was left with a difficult shot from a depression uphill to a green sloping away.
However, somehow he chipped in the 25-foot shot, which "kick-started" his round. From there he made birdies at 14, 17 and 18, where he rolled in a testy eight-footer.
Peterson, a 34-year-old from Colorado who won the Inland Empire Open in 2000 when the Nationwide was called the Buy.com Tour, put up the best score of the week with his 64, which included six birdies and an eagle at No. 3.
Although he's only made a little more than $61,000 this year, Peterson has been very consistent, making the cut in 16 of 20 Nationwide events, including the last nine in a row. The highlight of his round was an eagle-3 at the third hole.
Clegg, the 24-year-old from Bountiful who turned pro just after finishing at the University of Utah in May, recovered from a shaky start when he bogeyed two of the first four holes, to post a 70. He made four birdies without a bogey the rest of the way, including three 2s on his card. He is tied for 11th and if he stays in the top 25, he automatically qualifies for next week's Nationwide Tour event in Virginia.
Schneiter said the course played "way inconsistent" with some hard greens and some soft and he had a hard time putting all day on his way to a 74. "I couldn't seem to see the line," he said.
Although Schneiter says he's still trying to win the tournament, at eight shots down with 22 players in front of him, a more realistic goal would be to finish in the top 25.
Fehr, who is getting his game back in shape after not playing much for the past three years, began well with two early birdies, but fell back with a double bogey at the par-5 12th hole.
The first golfers will tee off at 9:09 a.m. with Wetterich and Sessler going off in the final group at 1:30 p.m.
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