Seamus Power hopes his putter is as hot as the weather on Sunday as he seeks the top-five finish that will likely keep his playoff run alive in the FedEx St Jude Championship in Memphis.
Ranked 66th in the FedExCup standings with only the top 50 progressing to next week’s BMW Championship in Denver, the West Waterford man gave himself a chance by carding a four-under 66 to share ninth place on seven-under at TPC Southwind.
He’s ten shots behind runaway leader Hideki Matsuyama but only three strokes outside the top five and while it will be tough to play aggressively on a demanding track, he believes a low nine holes could do the trick if the putter co-operates.
“It was pretty good,” said Power, who turned in two-under before sandwiching birdies and the 15th and 16th between two seven-foot par saves at the 14th and 18th, where he got up and down from 72 yards.
“It’s playing tricky again. There was a little more breeze than I was expecting, but I played very nicely.
“I made a couple of mistakes, but I was able to of save myself there on the back, which was nice. So, yeah, all in all, good day.
“I know I need another low one tomorrow. So pleased I put myself in position.”
Power knows it will be difficult to chase birdies on a track where Shane Lowry shot another level par 70 (with the highlight a 57-foot bomb for an eagle three at the 16th, his seventh.
The Offaly man is 39th on two-under but an out-of-sorts Rory McIlroy had to play the back nine in one-under to card a 74 that left him tied for 66th in the 70-man field on five-over.
McIlroy did well to limit the damage after following a bogey at his opening hole, the 10th, with double bogeys at the 12th and 13th.
“It’s where you can be aggressive is the thing here,” Power said. “This golf course is difficult. It’s just doesn’t give you a ton of opportunities. So you have to pick your spots.
“But, you know, I’m doing a lot of right things. Just haven’t quite got the putter going. So I just maybe need just nine holes of a hot putter tomorrow. That’s all it’s going to take. So we’ll see.
“I’m hitting it well enough to give myself chances. So let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
With the temperature forecast to hit 34c again on Sunday, Las Vegas-based Power knows what to expect.
“You just do your best,” he said. “You have a couple electrolytes, and you drink lots of water, but there’s only so much you can do.
“I mean, there’s sweat pouring off your hands out on the course and stuff. But, you know, we played in this last week. It was probably worse last week and it was a long weekend.
“It’s going to be back to twoballs tomorrow. When you’re only out there for four hours, it’s much more manageable. And so you just do what you can.
“You drink lots and lots, there’s no way of drinking too much, so just gonna keep doing that.”
At the top of the leaderboard, Matsuyama made an eagle and five birdies in a second successive 64 to lead by five strokes from rookie Nick Dunlap, who shot 66, on 17-under.
Reigning FedExCup champion Viktor Hovland also shot 66 to sit alone in third on 11-under while points leader and world number one Scottie Scheffler fired a 69 to lurk alongside Sam Burns, who shot 70, in fourth on 10-under.
Power has serious traffic around him with Will Zalatoris and Denny McCarthy joint sixth on nine-under and PGA and Open champion Xander Schauffele a shot further back in eighth.
The Tooraneena man is in a x-way tie for ninth with Akshay Bhatia, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tony Finau, Robert MacIntyre, Billy Horschel and Justin Rose.
