The Irish native, who now calls South Florida home, had a bogey-free round of 8-under 63 on Saturday, moving to 13 under and finishing with a share of the lead after three rounds of the Cognizant Classic.
He is tied with Austin Smotherman, who battled his way to a 69. Lowry said his goal going into Saturday — where tee times were moved up because of expected bad weather — was just to get into one of the final two groups for Sunday, and then did slightly better than that.
“You want to be close to the leaders, watch them and see what they’re doing,” Lowry said. “If the conditions are like this tomorrow, there will be low scores, so someone could come out of the pack. It’s not necessarily easy to lead on this golf course. There are a lot of very difficult shots. But I’m where I want to be. I’ve had a few opportunities to win this tournament, and hopefully I can convert them tomorrow.”
He’s had more than a few. It has almost become an annual tradition.
Lowry finished second in 2022, when the event was still called the Honda Classic, and eventually lost the lead in bizarre fashion, getting caught in a deluge that wreaked havoc on the final hole. Sepp Straka eventually won by one shot, and Lowry got soaked.
“You get good breaks and bad breaks, and that was a bad break,” Lowry said. “Yeah, we’ll see. Hopefully none of that tomorrow.”
A year later, he finished in fifth place at the PGA National, had the solo lead going into the final round of the Cognizant before finishing tied for fourth in 2024, and tied for 11th last year.
“There wasn’t much wind there, so there are certain things that aligned today to make it easy enough to play, wind direction being one of them,” Lowry said. “But you still have to go out there and make the shots. The greens are firm. If you don’t hit the ball right, it can get away from you. I felt like I did everything pretty well today.”
It looked like things tried to get away from Smotherman – who also led after rounds 1 and 2 – a few times on Saturday, but he kept it together just enough to finish in first place.
Back-to-back bogeys at the par-4 6th and the par-3 7th threatened to throw his round off track, but a birdie-birdie finish might have given him some momentum heading into Sunday as he sought what would be his first PGA Tour victory.
Nico Echavarria (66) and Taylor Moore (67) were one shot back at 12 under, and Jimmy Stanger — who will earn a check on tour for the first time since April 2024 after spending the last two years with serious elbow problems — is alone in fifth place at 11 under after shooting a 65 Saturday.
“It just feels good to be back,” Stanger said. “It feels good to be playing on a weekend. It’s been a few years. It’s good to be healthy. It’s just icing on the cake to be here in contention this week.”
Moving Day, as Saturday is often called on tour, had a number of movers.
Lowry’s 63 tied Patton Kizzire for the round of the day; Kizzire climbed 45 places to a tie for ninth at 8 under. Keith Mitchell and Beau Hossler both shot 64s to join Kizzire there, five shots behind the leaders.
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