reigning U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun<\/a> (68) were two strokes back. Spaun birdied with a blast out of a greenside bunker at the 428-yard 15th hole after bogeys on two of his previous three holes. <\/p>\nHogan\u2019s Alley firmed up in the heat of a 90-degree day after rain earlier in the week, and it is expected to be even warmer Sunday. The scoring average for the third round was 71.2, after being under par each of the first two days. <\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of knew going into it that it was going to be a harder course, firmer conditions,\u201d Cole said. \u201cGetting off to that start and realizing how much harder the course was today was great.\u201d<\/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, from South Africa, won once on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
Cole, who will be going for a win on his mother\u2019s 71st birthday Sunday, last played in the final group in the final round at the 2025 Sony Open, when he finished fifth. His PGA Tour debut was in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be an easy day tomorrow. I know that from my experience,\u201d Cole said. \u201cI know that it\u2019s going to be difficult, but that\u2019s why I practice really hard and that\u2019s why I try and do everything the way I do so that I could be as prepared for whatever tomorrow brings.\u201d<\/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 tied for 25th and five strokes off the lead. <\/p>\n
Gerard had three bogeys and three birdies until his impressive finish. After a tap-in birdie at the 399-yard 17th, he hit his approach to 6 feet at the 424-yard closing hole while playing in the final threesome of the day. <\/p>\n
\u201cFelt like I was just kind of grinding it out pretty hard all day. Felt really confident with how I\u2019ve been playing, I just didn\u2019t feel like I was hitting it as close as yesterday and wasn\u2019t leaving my ball in the greatest spots,\u201d Gerard said. \u201cSo it\u2019s one of those, every shot really matters, any time you get a chance to capitalize on an opportunity you\u2019ve got to take advantage of it. <\/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
\u201cThere was a lot of positives. I like how I drove it on the front nine, I gave myself a lot of opportunities, a lot of birdie opportunities,\u201d Meissner said. \u201cThe goal tomorrow for sure will just be to try and get the ball in the fairway a little bit more. It\u2019s difficult out here.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/a><\/p>\nCopyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 Eric Cole put himself in position for a shot at his first PGA Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5053,5055,1561,2184,5054,2211,2156,2133,56],"class_list":["post-11497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-j-j-spaun","tag-bobby-cole","tag-eric-cole","tag-j-j-spaun","tag-jordan-smith","tag-laura-baugh","tag-mac-meissner","tag-michael-thorbjornsen","tag-ryan-gerard","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11497","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=11497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}