David GonzalezEugenio Chacarra will begin Sunday at the 2026 DP World India Championship two shots clear of the field. The catch is that he still has 25 holes to play.
An opening-day weather delay of nearly five hours has left Delhi Golf Club with a substantial backlog. When play stopped on Saturday, the Spaniard was 14 under par through 11 holes of his third round, ahead of Angel Hidalgo and Joost Luiten, both at 12 under. Hidalgo had also played 11 holes; Luiten had completed 12.
Nobody at the top has a conventional final day in prospect.
Nine birdies, two scorecards
Chacarra’s advantage was built across two rounds in the same day. He returned on Saturday morning to finish the last 13 holes of round two, collecting five birdies but surrendering shots at the ninth and 16th. A second consecutive 67 left him 10 under and one ahead of Scott Jamieson at halfway.
There was little sign of fatigue when he returned for round three.
Four birdies on a bogey-free outward nine of 32 lifted him to 14 under, and he remained there through the 11th. Nine birdies across the day’s two stretches of play have given him the sort of cushion any leader would take, although seven holes of round three still stand between him and the final-round tee.
Chacarra has made no secret of his ambition to win, or of the wider Race to Dubai implications. He is trying to catch season-long rankings leader Patrick Reed, with Rory McIlroy another name he regards as a formidable benchmark.
“I just play to win, you know. I love winning. I love being in contention on Sunday. That’s what I play every week for, to have a chance to win the tournament the last nine holes on Sunday.”
On this occasion, reaching those final nine holes will require rather more golf than usual.
Reed makes his own move
Reed had survived the cut at level par, but his third-round response was emphatic. With five holes left when play was halted, he had reached six under for the tournament.
He remains eight strokes behind Chacarra on the incomplete leaderboard, yet his Saturday revival is a reminder that the rankings contest is not decided by the leader’s score alone.
Hidalgo and Luiten remain the immediate threats to Chacarra. Both sit two behind and have unfinished third rounds of their own, leaving plenty of room for the leaderboard to shift before the fourth round begins.
The players who actually finished
Only 26 players completed round three on Saturday. Defending champion Tommy Fleetwood and Italy’s Gregorio De Leo were the best placed of them, both at nine under.
Fleetwood signed for a bogey-free 68, while De Leo’s 66 featured an eagle at the eighth, his penultimate hole.
Dan Bradbury also completed his round, although a closing double bogey left him eight under.
He and playing partners Darius van Driel and David Law had hurried to beat the suspension. Van Driel was even sent running from the eighth green to the ninth tee, a rather literal contribution to the group’s pace of play.
Bradbury had played 28 holes during the day, so finishing before the stoppage had a practical reward: a longer night’s rest.
Lowry’s unlikely turnaround
Shane Lowry had started Saturday contemplating an early departure. He still had 12 holes of his second round to negotiate and believed he needed four under across them to reach the weekend.
He managed seven under instead, then added a 69 in round three to finish at seven under overall.
That amounted to 10 under for 30 holes played during the day. Three birdies in his opening four holes of round three briefly promised an even lower number, before the putts stopped falling on his back nine.
Laurie Canter joined Lowry at seven under, recovering from an opening 76 with a nine-under second round completed across Friday and Saturday, followed by a third-round 70.
Sunday starts early
The third round is scheduled to resume at 6.35am on Sunday, with the final round starting no earlier than 9.15am.
Those timings underline the scale of the tournament’s catch-up operation.
Chacarra has the lead, the momentum and two shots of breathing space. Delhi has ensured he will need considerably more than a routine Sunday to turn them into a trophy.
