PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Matt Jones glanced at a leaderboard at the seventh hole and saw he had fallen six shots behind Aaron Wise in Saturday’s third round of the Honda Classic.
Jones wasn’t the last bit worried.
“Six back means nothing on this golf course,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how big your lead is or how small your lead is, anything can happen on this golf course.”
A lot certainly happened on Saturday, when windy conditions from the north and tougher pin positions brought out the best – and worst – of the Champion course at PGA National.
By the time Jones walked off the 14th hole, he was tied for the lead as Wise unraveled. By the end of the third round, Jones had a three-shot lead over Wise and J.B. Holmes at 10-under 200.
Jones’ 1-under 69 was the only sub-par round among the final 12 groups – the other 11 players were a combined 39-over.
The Bear Trap allowed only nine birdies combined on the 15th, 16th and 17th holes. Jones said he didn’t even aim for the greens on those holes.
“They’re not birdie holes at all,” Jones said. “They’re just don’t-make-the-biggest-mistakes holes. I managed to play them even par, which is great.”
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After Wise opened with consecutive 64s and played his first four holes in two-under Saturday, it looked like he was turning the Honda Classic into a runaway with the six-shot lead.
Then his game crashed. He double bogeyed the par-4 sixth hole after missing a 3-foot putt, and things continued downhill. He played his last 13 holes in 7-over and staggered away after a 75 to drop to 7-under.
From up six to three back, in less than 2½ hours.
“No shock, nothing like that,” Wise said. “I just ran into a really hard golf course and I was a little off my game. It was a rough day.”
Wise wasn’t happy when he – not his group – got put on the clock at the 10th hole for slow play. But he insisted it had no role in his back-nine 39, ending with a bogey on the 18th hole after he couldn’t find his hooked tee shot.
“I didn’t think it was necessarily a fair thing that happened, but it happened, and it is what it is,” he said. “We’ll move on from there.”
Jones, who shot a course-record-tying 61in the first round, caught Wise when he almost jarred his approach at the par-4 14th. When Wise bogeyed the 15th hole after hitting his approach into a bunker, Jones had the lead alone for the first time since Thursday.
“Growing up in Australia, I’m quite comfortable in the wind,” said Jones, who has won a PGA Tour event and two Australian Opens. “I just play a little safer. I don’t go at the pins.”
J.B. Holmes, one of the game’s longest hitters, shot a second consecutive 67 to put him in position to win his sixth PGA Tour title. He made five birdies against two bogeys.
“Really, I didn’t miss an iron shot on the back side,” Holmes said. “It was playing very difficult, there wasn’t a lot of room for error.”
Holmes has had some success in South Florida. He took a five-shot lead into the final round of the 2015 WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral near Miami, but was overtaken by Dustin Johnson on Sunday.
C.T. Pan’s 65 – the low round of the day – moved him 38 spots up the leaderboard into fourth place at 6-under. He’s tied with Cameron Tringale (69) and Sam Ryder (72).
Keegan Bradley had a brilliant round derailed by a double bogey at the 15th hole. His 67 has him tied for seventh at 5-under with defending champion Sungjae Im (69), former major champions Zach Johnson (70) and Stewart Cink (70), Brice Garnett (70) and Robert Streb (70).
Jones had the lead at the 2008 Honda Classic as a rookie until he double-bogeyed the 17th hole in the final round. He knows how hard it will be to finish the job Sunday when conditions are expected to be similar to Saturday’s.
“I’ve got a long way to go,” Jones said. “A lot of holes out here that can get you. If I keep managing my game, hopefully I’ll have a chance coming down the last nine.”
As Jones said, a three-shot lead means nothing here. We saw Saturday how quickly a six-shot lead can disappear on the Champion course.
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