Scottie Scheffler fired a 6-under-par 64 on Saturday at Olympia Fields (Ill.) Country Club to tie Matt Fitzpatrick atop the leaderboard of the BMW Championship after 54 holes.
The pair sit at 11-under 199, one stroke ahead of Open champion Brian Harman, who shot 67. Second-round leader Max Homa (67 on Saturday) sits solo fourth at 9 under for the tournament.
Fitzpatrick carded a 66, suffering a bogey on No. 18 that cost him the outright lead heading into Sunday’s final round. He had a bogey-free round to that point.
Fitzpatrick, who was 40th in the FedExCup standings coming into the weekend, is looking forward to securing his ticket to East Lake. And barring a total collapse, that should be a slam dunk. After 54 holes, the Englishman is projected to be in the top 5 and he could go into Atlanta in the top 3 with a win.
Only the top 30 advance to the PGA Tour Championship.
“There’s no guarantee I’m in Atlanta yet,” Fitpatrick said. “I’ve got to tap in on Sunday and in a good position. Happy to give myself at least a chance going into tomorrow. Definitely felt comfortable again out there and just trying to build on it.”
Scheffler buried four birdies on the back nine — seven overall — including three in a row on Nos. 10-12. His round propelled him to his third 54-hole lead or co-lead this season, tied with Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler for tops on that chart.
Scheffler was happy with the way he “scrambled.”
“I hit some really good bunker shots,” Scheffler said. “I did a good job when I got into trouble today, I got myself out of it pretty quickly, and a lot of that was due to some really short game shots where it takes a lot of stress off of you when you just chip it to a foot instead of 8 feet, so that always helps keep the momentum of the round going.”
Scheffler would move to No. 1 in the FedExCup standings with a win; no player has entered the Tour Championship with the lead in the FedExCup two consecutive years. But he’s not looking past the next 18 holes.
“I don’t really pay attention to what’s going on with the leaderboards, especially when it comes to projections,” he said. “It was Saturday out here, so I’m not really too concerned about next week. I was just trying to have a good round of golf and just try and move my way up the leaderboard.”
McIlroy (67) of Northern Ireland and Viktor Hovland (65) of Norway are three shots off the lead in a tie for fifth.
Another four golfers are T7 at 7 under, including Sam Burns, who matched Homa’s 62 on Friday with a 62 of his own in the third round, tying his career-best round and vaulting 26 spots up the leaderboard.
“Unfortunately, yeah. I didn’t want to tie him, I wanted to beat him,” Burns said about tying Homa’s course record. “But I’ll take it.”
In addition to Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose (T7) of South Africa and Denny McCarthy (T7) are projected to make the top-30 cutline.
Meanwhile, three players are projected to move out of the top 30: Jordan Spieth (T30 after three rounds), Emiliano Grillo (T38) of Argentina and Sepp Straka (T43) of Austria. Spieth shot 2-over 72 and is projected at 31st in the rankings.
–Field Level Media
