WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — After needing a birdie merely to survive the cut at the Greenbrier Classic, Jason Bohn kept draining putts Saturday.
A career-best 10 birdies carried Bohn to a 9-under 61 and a share of the third-round lead, prime position to chase his first PGA Tour victory in five years.
At 11 under he’s tied with Bryce Molder, Sean O’Hair and S.J. Park.
“I didn’t really have a lot of break to any of my putts. They were left edge, inside right,” Bohn said. “I had a lot of straight putts, and that was pretty easy. I kind of felt very comfortable with the putter.
“When you go off that early, the greens are perfect.”
Bohn began carving through the Old White TPC before some of the second-round frontrunners climbed out of bed. He won’t have to rise so early for the final round.
“I just wanted to sleep in, to be honest,” he said.
Bohn hasn’t won since the Zurich Classic in 2010, though he owns five second-place finishes in that span. Currently he’s 37th in theFedEx Cup rankings and 108th in the world, having earned more than $1.5 million this year.
Though Bohn capped his fantastic round with a birdie on No. 18, he was looking for more.
“I wanted to hole it because I wanted everybody to get a thousand bucks,” he said.
Greenbrier owner Jim Justice’s cash promotion—which on Thursday paid out more than $260,000 following aces—would mean another $1,000 for every fan around the 18th green should a third hole-in-one transpire.
Bohn will paired Sunday with O’Hair, 33, a four-time Tour champion who hasn’t won since 2011. A three-day performance of 66-67-66 reveals the kind of consistency O’Hair has been lacking.
“When I look at my career, I haven’t given myself a lot of opportunities to win golf tournaments, and I feel that’s why I’ve got four wins instead of maybe 10,” he said.
Even with 31 golfers clumped within four shots of the lead—any of them capable of striking a Bohn-like rally—O’Hair wasn’t stressing.
“I’m not going to say I don’t watch the leaderboard, but I can’t play someone else’s game,” he said. “I don’t feel any pressure. This definitely beats struggling, I can promise you.”
Molder nearly sole leader: Among the last golfers off the course, Molder missed a birdie putt on No. 18 that would have given him the lead outright.
Still, his bogey-free 67 was satisfactory for a player currently ranked 248th in the world and with one Tour win since turning pro in 2001.
“At one time I saw under my bio, ‘Won the 2000 World Amateur,’ and I thought that’s 15 years ago,” Molder said. “I need to do something that’s worthy of getting up there again or something that’s a little more recent.”
Second-round leaders plummet: Co-leaders Scott Langley and Jhonattan Vegas began Saturday at 9 under, but quickly fell deep into the pack.
Langley triple-bogeyed the fifth hole on his way to a 74, falling into a tie for 40th at 5-under. The freefall for Vegas was more dramatic—a birdie-free 76 that dropped him to 3 under and into a tie for 62nd.