Christiaan Bezuidenhout clawed his way back into a good position on Saturday with a four-under-par 67 in the third round of the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship in Wilmington, Delaware.
That saw him climb 19 places on the leaderboard into a share of 14th. At six-under for the tournament, he was six strokes behind the lead which was set at 12-under by Patrick Cantlay after he signed for a six-under 65. Cantlay led by one from Xander Schauffele and Scott Stallings, with Adam Scott and world number one Scottie Scheffler sharing fourth on 10-under.
The number that Bezuidenhout is watching closely is his projected finish on the FedEx Cup rankings at the end of this tournament, after which the top 30 make it to the Tour Championship next week at East Lake, Atlanta. He is currently projected to climb to 50th, and he knows he has to push well inside the top 10 – probably eighth or better – to make it to the season finale.
In that regard, he will rue the two bogeys he made on 12 and 18, because, without those, he could have been on eight-under for the tournament and in a share of eighth. On the par-five 12th, he pushed his tee-shot right, and then put his third over the green. He messed up the chip from about eight metres, leaving it on the fringe, and got down in two from there. On 18, he pulled his approach to the par-four short left, and, despite a good chip to just over 10 feet, the resultant two-putt was not a good way to finish.
However, with all that said, his play trended more towards the accuracy which makes him such a good player: He had his best round of the week off the tee, hitting nine of 14 fairways, and hitting 14 of the 18 greens in regulation. It was that combined with a putter that is warming up that got him his birdies, and he will seek more of the same in the final round in an attempt to extend his season to the final event.
