Improving De Los Santos fires a 69

ustin De Los Santos of the Philippines produced another solid round to give himself a crack at a third JGTO top-10 finish at the Japan Players Championship by Sato Shokuhin.

The 26-year-old posted a three-under-par 69 at the Nishi Nasuno Country Club to sit in a share of 21st place with his three-day total of 10-under-par 206.

A day after reaching the halfway stage in tied-13th, De Los Santos continued to perform steadily by trading four birdies against a lone bogey at the last.

De Los Santos, who moved to Japan to play full-time here since 2019, will now head into the final day seven shots behind Katsumasa Miyamoto and is just two shots within the top-10 standings.

De Los Santos will be out to make it three top-10 finishes in six starts after coming in joint sixth at the ISPS Handa Championship in April and solo fourth in Mizuno Open last month.

Regardless of how he finishes tomorrow, the one-time Abema Tour winner is delighted with how things have panned out for him thus far.

De Los Santo’s superb outing at the Mizuno Open also earned him a coveted ticket to The 150th Open at St Andrews next month.

Last year, it took De Los Santos until the sixth start before he could make his first cut.

“Yeah, it’s definitely been a pretty good improvement to last year,” said De Los Santos, who turned professional in 2018.