Aaron Rai leads by 1 in Abu Dhabi with Tommy Fleetwood, Nicolai Hojgaard on his heels
Nick Stavas- Aaron Rai leads the 2025 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship by one shot heading into the final round.
- Tommy Fleetwood and Nicolai Hojgaard are tied for second place, just one stroke back.
- Rai is seeking his first DP World Tour victory in five years.
- Shane Lowry, Rory McIlroy and Tyrell Hatton remain within striking distance of the lead and will look to make a Sunday charge.
Aaron Rai is one round away from rejoining the winner's circle on the DP World Tour for the first time in five years but he'll have to hold off some serious star power to do so.
The 30-year-old Englishman fired a 6-under 66 Saturday in the third round of the 2025 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and will enter the final day with the outright lead at 20 under, one shot clear of a tie for second between Tommy Fleetwood and Nicolai Hojgaard.
Rai's third round didn't quite have the flair of his second round, in which he recorded an albatross on the par-5 second hole, but he still picked up five shots on the front nine and went out in 31.
"A really good round overall," said Rai, who's making his first start since finishing tied for third at the BMW PGA Championship in September. "Drove it extremely well. Some really good iron play. Created a lot of chances. I felt like I rolled it really well on the greens. A lot of putts had a good chance of going in. The wind definitely picked up for us on the back nine. It played tricky out there."
At one point Saturday, Rai held a three-shot lead but stumbled with a bogey at the par-4 17th while Fleetwood and Hojgaard made birdie on No. 18 to cut his lead back to one. Rai is seeking his third win on the DP World Tour and his first since he hoisted the trophy at the 2020 Scottish Open. He secured his first and only PGA Tour victory in 2024 at the Wyndham Championship but didn't find such success this year, going winless and only finishing inside the top 10 twice. It seems his game is trending upward, though, and he could get right back on track with a win Sunday.
"This is one of the biggest events we have on the DP World Tour," Rai said. "Still a long way to go and a lot of really good players. We'll give it our best and see how it comes."
One of those really good players is Fleetwood, who's enjoying the best season of his career and trying to soak up every moment of it.
"I've been saying the whole time, I'm playing very good golf at the moment, and I've found myself in this position a lot throughout the summer, but never take it for granted," Fleetwood said Saturday. "This is what we practice for. These are the times of our lives and I'm enjoying it very much."
The 34-year-old Englishman finally broke into the PGA Tour winner's circle by emerging victorious at the season-ending Tour Championship, nabbing the FedEx Cup and the $10 million check that came with it. A month later, he went 4-1 at the Ryder Cup and helped lead Team Europe to its first victory on U.S. soil since 2012. He won again a few weeks ago at the DP World India Championship, where his son, Frankie, got to greet his victorious dad on the green at long last.
He now enters the final round in Abu Dhabi with a chance to put yet another feather in his 2025 cap and, of course, the ever-composed Fleetwood is approaching the final round exactly how golf fans would expect him to: "Just grateful for another opportunity to go out there and control what I can control. Hopefully I play well. If I don't, dust myself off and go again."
Joining Rai and Fleetwood in the final group Sunday will be Hojgaard, who has turned in rounds of 65-67-65 to head into Sunday at 19 under. Nacho Elvira (18 under), Andy Sullivan (17 under) and Daniel Hillier (17 under) will make up the penultimate group off the tee for the final round.
Some big names will have an outside chance to make noise Sunday and it stands to reason at least one of them will charge up the leaderboard to put some pressure on the guys at the top. Shane Lowry is part of a four-way tie for eighth at 15 under, one shot ahead of a six-way tie for 12th that features the likes of Rory McIlroy and Tyrell Hatton. McIlroy signed for a 66 on Saturday while Hatton got off to a blistering start en route to an 8-under 64.