Palm Beach Gardens, Florida – Jake Knapp spent a wild Saturday at the Cognitive Classic and avoided disaster by taking a 3-15-shot 3, a pair of late birdies, 68 below 68 and gained a shot lead in the final round of the PGA National.
Knapp opened the game with 59 times, starting the third round with a single goal lead and trailing three shots when it was the turn. He hit a 12-foot birdie putt on the 16th and ended with a chip and putt birdie on the 5-5-screw closure hole, leaving it in front.
“There’s a little bit everywhere,” Knapp said.
Michael Kim and nearly twenty others.
There were so many moves in this fascinating third round that there were 10 players who had at least a portion of the lead at one point. Some of them were undone by the 15th, a water game 163 yards in a rock wall frame.
Taylor Montgomery, who had six birdies in the top nine and was the first player to reach 15, took a lead when he drew two T-shirts in danger on the 15th. The first one was the line driver, which almost hit the crocodile in the water. The second in the fall area rolls back into the cracks of the rock. It adds up to tetraploid 7.
“You cheer yourself up for a second in this game, and it can bite you,” Montgomery said. Montgomery assembled with two birdies in the next three holes to save the A 68. He was three behind.
Sweden’s Jesper Svensson won the PGA Tour last year on the European Tour and was led when he grabbed too many balls from a bunker behind the 15th green and drove into the water. He had three bogeys and hit the water on the 18th. He tied for the lead with four games, with the back six.
Another victim is Kim, although he has wealth here. His lead will reach 15th position as his tee drives high from the rock to the wood, turning right and bent to the right as it gently lands in the mud.
Most golf balls were showing, so he took off his right shoe and socks, exploded out of the mud, and hit the green about 25 feet away. He was two for the first bogey of the game. It could get worse – more confusing.
“I’m not as wet as I thought,” he said.
Knapp made mistakes in his first nine games, especially in his iron and short-lived games, but he steadily got down due to many others struggling.
As the week gets harder and greener in a lot of sunshine, this makes the last round full of possibilities.
“It’s just a small amount of hunting,” Knapp said. “It’s a bit conservative target, you have to do more dialing by distance control and shooting shapes and things like that, because if you don’t, you end up in bunkers, water or places you don’t want to be.”
Russell Henley and Ben Griffin had 66 players, and Doug Ghim, 68, completed a crazy day with only two shots. Montgomery and Rickie Fowler (68) were three behind, then a set of shots that included Joe Highsmith and Max McGreevy, who each signed 64 and then the leader even pulled out.
The 22 players were within five leads, including Jordan Spieth (68) and Brian Campbell, who won his first PGA Tour in Mexico last week and shot 66 from the field.
Knapp scored 59 or lower on the PGA Tour, but only five players continued to win. The most recent one is Brandt Snedeker seven years ago. Knapp will also try to be the first line-to-line winner in tournament history.
It’s a different experience for anyone who leads every time in three rounds, thanks to 59.
“It was a good Thursday, and after the shot, it felt weird and it wasn’t perfect every time,” Knapp said. “Just manage my expectations and don’t get frustrated with anything, just understand it’s a long week. There are a lot of great players here that can be stupidly stupid, so just stick to my game plan.”
Over the years, cognitive classics have roamed with different names. PGA National can be enough in a circus with so much water and lacks wind energy, so it is safe to have no lead. This is obvious on Saturday.
