Ahern moves three shots clear

Jim Ahern shot a bogey-free 5-under-par 67 on Saturday to take the lead after two rounds of the SAS Championship on the Champions Tour.

Ahern is 12 under for the tournament with a 132. He is three strokes ahead of Walter Hall and Bobby Wadkins, who are tied for second on the 7,129-yard Prestonwood Country Club course.

David Eger and Bruce Fleisher are tied for fourth at 8 under. A trio of players, including first-round co-leader D.A. Weibring, are at 7 under.

Ahern, who won the Music City Championship at Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, Tenn., in June, separated himself from the pack atop the leaderboard with an eagle on the 505-yard, par-5 17th. He landed his second shot from 235 yards out within 10 feet.

"I choked down a good inch-and-a-half on a 5-wood and faded it right in there," said Ahern, 29th on the money list with $561,460. "The greens were holding very well."

Ahern tries not to look at the large leaderboards that are sprinkled throughout the course so he didn't know that he was leading by one stroke at the time.

"I'm nervous enough out there," he said. "I'd like to know coming down the stretch today, but that's it."

Hall shot 66, and Wadkins 68 on Saturday. They'll occupy spots in the final threesome with Ahern.

"There are low rounds out there," said Wadkins, who birdied four of his last seven holes. "You just hope that you have one of them on Sunday."

Eger matched Allen Doyle for the day's low round with a 65. Eger's round featured 10 birdies and could have been better. He bogeyed three of his final six holes, including three-putt bogeys on No. 16 and No. 18.

"My mind-set today was to play better and not waste the shots I've been wasting," he said. "I did that for the most part. I only wasted the two strokes on those three-putts. Still, it's a little bittersweet finishing with two bogeys."

For the second consecutive day, players were allowed to lift, clean and place their ball from the fairway, a ruling necessitated by the still soggy course conditions resulting from Hurricane Isabel.

"You'll have to go low," said Fleisher after a 69, referring to Sunday's final round. "The conditions are ideal for scoring."

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