reigning U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun<\/a> (68) were two strokes back.<\/p>\nAfter four birdies in his first eight holes, Cole added two more through 11 holes on a 90-degree day at Hogan\u2019s Alley, which firmed up in that heat after rain earlier in the week. His only bogey was sandwiched by birdies on the back nine.<\/p>\n
Spaun birdied with a blast out of a greenside bunker at the 428-yard 15th hole, which came after bogeys on two of his previous three holes.<\/p>\n
PGA Tour rookie Jordan Smith, who entered the day leading at 10 under with a one-stroke lead, had four bogeys without a birdie in a round of 4-over 74 to drop to a tie for 19th place. He had three consecutive bogeys at Nos. 5 through 7 after only one bogey in his first 40 holes before that.<\/p>\n
This is the 120th PGA start for the 37-year-old Cole, whose parents were both former professional players. His mother, Laura Baugh, was the LPGA\u2019s rookie of the year in 1973 and had 70 top-10 finishes over a 25-year LPGA career. Bobby Cole was a native of South Africa whose only PGA Tour victory came in 1977 at Flint Elks Club in Michigan.<\/p>\n
Cole, who will be going for a win on his mother’s 71st birthday Sunday, has the 54-hole lead for the sixth time since his PGA Tour debut in 2021. The last time was the 2025 Sony Open when he finished fifth.<\/p>\n
His chip-in from 27 feet off edge of the green at the 196-yard par-3 16th came after the bogey at the par-4 15th. He birdied the 439-yard 14th hole after an approach shot inside 5 feet.<\/p>\n
Cole went into Saturday\u2019s round at Colonial tied for 25th and five strokes off the lead.<\/p>\n
Meissner, 27, who lives in Dallas and played at SMU, had five birdies through 11 holes. He missed an opportunity to go lower with two bogeys on the back nine.<\/p>\n
Michael Thorbjornsen was also playing in the final group Saturday, and tumbled backward onto his rear end after hitting a shot out of a greenside bunker at par-5 first hole. He still parred that hole, but had only one birdie in a round of 71 to go to 8 under.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) \u2014 Eric Cole has put himself in position for another shot at his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5053,2499,5055,5108,5107,1561,2184,2211,144,2133,418],"class_list":["post-11386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-j-j-spaun","tag-bobby-cole","tag-charles-schwab-challenge","tag-eric-cole","tag-fort-worth","tag-greenside-bunker","tag-j-j-spaun","tag-jordan-smith","tag-mac-meissner","tag-pga-tour","tag-ryan-gerard","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}