Power Rankings: Sanderson Farms Championship

Omar Uresti, at 52, has stirred up some controversy by playing in PGA professional events. He also is one of the players who let Michael Collins carry his bag. So, yes, there’s a lot to talk about.

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PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Daniel Berger wasn’t flawless. He just kept avoiding big problems, which almost nobody has managed to do at PGA National this week. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Inside the Field: Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard That’s why he remains the leader of The Honda Classic. Berger started with a three-shot lead and ended with a five-shot advantage, after his round of 1-under 69 moved him 18 holes away from winning a tournament a 15-minute drive from his home. Shane Lowry (67), Chris Kirk (71), Sepp Straka (69) and first-round leader Kurt Kitayama (71) were tied for second at 6 under. Only 13 of the 73 players who made the cut shot below par Saturday. Nobody went low, and unless Berger starts making many mistakes, somebody is going to have to on Sunday in order to deny him a fifth PGA TOUR victory. Lowry had the day’s best round — and that was just 3 under. “I’ve drove the ball in play and I’ve managed to putt pretty good,” Lowry said. “My putting felt pretty average at the start of the week. I found something as the week went on.” He needs to find something more. Or more specifically, hope that Berger misplaces something. “Obviously you want to go out and catch him tomorrow, but I don’t think you can go and catch anyone on this golf course,” Lowry said. “You just need to do your thing and shoot the best score you can and hopefully it will be somewhere near good enough.” Andrew Kozan, Curtis Thompson, Billy Horschel and Kevin Streelman all shot 68s on Saturday, though in all four cases, that simply meant just getting to even par for the week and nowhere near Berger. “It played a lot tougher today,” Kitayama said. There were hints that Berger might come back to the pack, starting from his first tee shot of the day when he pulled the ball into the left rough. The left rough awaited him on No. 4 as well, as did a greenside bunker on No. 7. He saved par each time, and again on No. 10, when he two-putted from 65 feet to keep the card flawless. The only mistake came on the last, his lone bogey of the day. Kirk was the closest for a while, just three shots back as he headed to the par-4 14th. But a trip into the trees led to a double-bogey, and Berger backed off his putt before coolly rolling in a 5-footer to save par yet again. Armed with a five-shot lead, Berger went for it at the par-3 15th, the start of the three-hole stretch known as the “Bear Trap” that typically frowns on aggression. He went at the flag, kept the ball below the wind and watched it settle 7 feet from the hole. The birdie putt was center-cut, getting him to 12 under — six shots ahead of the nearest challengers at that moment. Kozan was perhaps the day’s biggest success story. He waited 12 hours to play four shots, then played 68 more shots in the next three hours or so. Kozan stopped play on the par-5 18th fairway Friday night because of darkness, a wise move since he needed par to make the cut. After five hours of sleep, he was at the course by 5:40 a.m. Saturday to warm up and resumed play at 6:47. He used a couple short irons to get to the green from about 260 yards out, then two-putted for the par that allowed him to make his first PGA Tour cut. That was at 6:59. At 7:35, he teed off in a solo group to begin the third round and at 10:51, he rolled in a 4-footer for birdie to end a third round of 2 under 68. “Nothing to lose,” Kozan said. And quite a bit to gain. Kozan’s biggest check as a pro so far is $29,333 for finishing second last year at the Korn Ferry Tour’s qualifying school. He could top that Sunday; anyone finishing alone in 43rd or better at the Honda is assured at least $30,000, and Kozan was tied for 19th.

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JACKSON, Miss. – What does it take to win? That question will hover over the final round of the Sanderson Farms Championship, where seven of the top nine contenders would be first-time winners on the PGA TOUR. Max Homa said at the season-opening Fortinet Championship two weeks ago that he plays knowing he’s not the final arbiter of who wins, given the bounces and breaks that must go one’s way to do so. RELATED: Leaderboard | Sahith Theegala’s special feel for the game helps him earn first PGA TOUR card Then he won for the third time. “A hundred percent, I agree with Max that certain things have to go your way for the week for you to be able to win,” said Sahith Theegala, whose third-round 67 left him with a one shot lead over four players. “I don’t think there’s a whole lot of exceptions to that.” The caveat, he added, is that winning is a habit that can be developed over time. Theegala has certainly developed it. A product of Southern California public courses, he went to Diamond Bar High School, the same school that produced Kevin Na nearly two decades earlier. Theegala played for Pepperdine, where he won four times and swept the awards for the nation’s top collegiate in 2020, and also won the Australian Masters of the Amateurs tournament, in Victoria. “I think it’s really important that a lot of guys have learned to win at every level,” he said. Of the four players just one back – Sam Burns (65), Denny McCarthy (65), Cameron Tringale (62), Cameron Young (67) – Burns is the only one with a TOUR win (2021 Valspar Championship). He lost a playoff to Abraham Ancer at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in August and is making his first start of the new season. “I haven’t putted it like I want to yet,” said Burns, who ranks a lowly 59th in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting (-1.414). “Hopefully that’s coming tomorrow.” Tringale might be the hottest of the four closest pursuers, having eagled the par-5 fifth and 14th holes and made 130 feet of putts. He’s second in SG: Putting and seeking victory No. 1 in his 311th TOUR start. “Just the competition,” Tringale, 34, said when asked what keeps him motivated. “I love playing, obviously I’ve been out here a long time, I haven’t won, but I love competing and I just want to see if I can keep beating guys and you know you compete every day – Sunday they give the trophies away, but you’re really out there grinding and you’re playing against yourself. “But it’s just fun to see how I can match up when I’m playing well,” he continued, “and even when I’m not, just how to manage that and get the most out of each week. That’s kind of the fun part for me. I’m kind of a journeyman to this point and I’m enjoying the journey.” Six of the last seven winners of the Sanderson Farms have been first-timer winners, with Sergio Garcia last year being the lone exception. (Fresh off the Ryder Cup, he missed the cut this week.) Burns is the highest ranked player in the Sanderson field (25), Aaron Wise (67, T8) is the next player on the leaderboard who has hoisted a trophy on the PGA TOUR (2018 AT&T Byron Nelson). He also has won on the Korn Ferry Tour, Forme Tour, and at University of Oregon. Other proven winners include Corey Conners (66), Andrew Landry (66), C.T. Pan (67) and Nick Watney (71), who are among a sixsome tied for 10th place, just three back. That hardly seems like much distance to make up, considering we’ve already seen a course-record 61 this week. Five-time TOUR winner Watney, 40, will try to break a drought that goes back to 2012. Such dry spells serve to remind how hard it is to win at the game’s highest level, and are one more reason why hopefuls like Theegala, or anyone, really, would do well to heed to words of Homa at the Fortinet. Play hard, do all you can, and go home knowing the end result was never entirely up to you.

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