Lucas Glover (14-under) shot a two-under 70 on Saturday, and will begin the final round on Sunday with a two-shot lead over Kyle Stanley, Jimmy Walker, Billy Horschel and D.A. Points at the Zurich Classic.
He started the third round on the lead after he shot a five-under 67 to reach 12-under, and took a one-stroke lead over Boo Weekley on Friday.
Glover, the 2009 U.S. Open winner who won the last of his three PGA Tour titles in 2011, seems to have distanced himself from the putting problems that sabotaged good ball-striking rounds for quite a while now.
For the second consecutive round, Glover was able to finish with a birdie on the 18th hole. This gave him the two shot cushion heading into the final round.
Glover has been smashing his drives, averaging 300.3 yards and has been hitting 70.37 percent of the greens-in-regulation (GIR). This has allowed him to own the Par-5 this week; he is playing them at 10-under thus far.
But the complementary part of the game that has taken him to this good performance, is that he is showing he has regained his touch on the greens.
Kyle Stanley, Kevin Stadler and Henrik Norlander flirted with tying the course record and were the big movers today thanks to their round-low seven-under 65. They just missed the course record of 64 by one shot.
Stanley had one eagle (Par-5 second) and six birdies to go along with his only bogey on the Par-4 fifth. On the fifth he found the fairway bunker off-the-tee, and then hit the right green side bunker with his second.
He wasn’t able to get up and down from there and bogey the hole. He moved up 22 spots to make the final pairing on Sunday, tied for second place.
Stadler made six birdies on the front nine and made the turn with a 30. But he couldn’t replicate that performance on the back nine where he made three birdies, but also had two bogey to close with his 65.
Still, that was good enough to move up 30 spots on the leaderboard and is sitting alone in sixth place at 11-under.
Swedish Norlander was the biggest mover on the day. His bogey-free round 65 moved him up 50 spots on the leaderboard, all the way up into a tie for seventh place at 10-under.
Jimmy Walker (T-2nd, 12-under) shot six-under for the round and his only blemish came on the Par-4 16th. He found a patch of rough on the fairway bunker with his tee shot, and then missed the green wide right about 37 yards from the hole.
He bogey the hole but ended his round on a high note with a birdie on the 18th hole. At that moment he had the lowest back nine score on the day with a 32.
But the player that had the lowest back nine score was Billy Horschel (T-2nd, 12-under) with a 31. His six-under 66 round was bogey-free and he hit 16 of 18 greens on Saturday—42-for-54 for the week.
D.A. Points completes the four-way tie for second-place thanks to stealth two-under 70. His only bogey was on the Par-4 fourth hole, and that is only his second bogey on the tournament. His other bogey came on the Par-4 12th on Thursday.
Boo Weekley started the day just one shot behind Glover. But after missing just six fairways in the first two rounds combined, his driving accuracy went MIA on Saturday going 6-for-14. He is tied for seventh at 10-under.
Ricky Barnes has been on a roller coaster. He was the opening round leader with a course record eight-under 64, but fell off the radar on Friday with a no-birdie, four-over 76. He bounced back on Saturday with a bogey-free six-under 66, tying him for seventh at 10-under.
American Luke Guthrie had the putt of the day. He made a sensational 43-foot birdie putt on the 15 hole that put him at four-under for the round at that moment. He made a bogey on the 18th hole and finished with three-under 69 for a total on nine-under for the tournament—tied for 11th.
Tianlang Guan, the 14-year-old sensation from China, had a rough day today with a five-over 77. He had made the cut on Friday after shooting a three-under 69.
The scores for other notables are:
T11 Nick Watney -9
T11 Justin Rose -9
T17 Jason Dufner -8
T17 Nicolas Colsaerts -8
T37 Bubba Watson -6
T46 Rickie Fowler -5
T65 David Toms -2
With seven-under looking like a makeable score for a round anything can happen on Sunday. The tee times for the final three groups are as follows:
9:01 am - Lucas Glover, Kyle Stanley, Jimmy Walker
9:50 am -Billy Horschel, D.A. Points, Kevin Stadler
8:39 am -Henrik Norlander, Ricky Barnes, Ken Looper
Make sure you are up early on Sunday to watch the final round. Play starts at 7:00 am ET with threesomes on the first and 10th tees.