Palm Beach Gardens, FL – PGA National and the Champion Course’s famous “Bear Trap” seemed to be a lot tougher on Saturday as the majority of the field struggled to shoot below par. Shane Lowry had the lowest round of the day at three-under, finishing tied for No. 2 on the leaderboard for the tournament at -6. However, it’s still Daniel Berger who holds a command leading entering the final day of The Honda Classic, sitting at -11 through three days.
Berger Keeps the Leading Going Into Sunday
After taking the lead on Friday, South Florida native Daniel Berger has not looked back. He carded two five-under rounds on the first two days, and followed it up on Saturday by shooting a one-under 69. With the rest of the field starting to struggle, Berger now has a commanding five-stroke lead with only 18 holes left to play.
Berger’s iron play has been the brightest part of his game. He hit 73% of greens in regulation and has been averaging 76% from the fairways all week.
Berger is an unorthodox golfer in that he does not use new club models like most pros; his irons are the same model that he used in high school. However, the model clearly does not matter for Berger.
He has also been showing his resilience on the greens. At one point, he was averaging 6.058 in strokes gained putting. In round three, however, this changed. He only gained 0.319 stokes through putting, but this was not unique to Berger; the greens were the main reason most players struggled to score below par on Saturday.
Shane Lowry Takes Moving Day’s Low Score
After moving day, Irishman Shane Lowry has the best chance to catch Berger. Lowry took home the low score of the Saturday, shooting three-under 67 in the third round.
His advantage was his better approaches on the greens. The greens at PGA National are incredibly hard and fast, so his 1.4 strokes gained on the greens compared to Berger’s .319 is a huge stat to pay attention to.
A five-stroke deficit is hard to come back from. However, if there is one person who can do it, Shane Lowry is the guy.
Tee times will start tomorrow at 7:30 am EST, but Daniel Berger and Shane Lowry will start their rounds at 1:30 pm EST. Make sure to tune in to see if Berger keeps his lead, or does Lowry pull off any amazing come from behind victory.
