Fort Worth, Texas – Ben Griffin and Matti Schmid are aligned with each other again on Saturday and will enter the colony’s final round and tie for four in front of the field, while world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is lurking not far away.
Griffin and Schmid shot 2 shots 2 shots after a quick start and they didn’t maintain it. They posted the same score on the Charles Schwab Challenge for the third day in a row, down 197. They followed 66 seconds, then 63 seconds, putting them in the lead.
Rickie Fowler hit 67, and 201 will be paired with Sunday’s final group co-leaders when Schmid sought his first PGA Tour victory after pairing with Andrew Novak to win last month’s New Orleans Zurich Classic. The 36-year-old Fowler entered the top 25 in early 2024, with his sixth victory and ending a four-year unwinning streak since the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classie in Detroit.
Having his third major win at the PGA Championship a week ago, Scheffler started his 10th day of the game, which was a 64-shot below 64, which put him under six and around six. If it weren’t for three bogeys, his last seven holes would be closer. But with another big leg on Sunday, he still has the chance to be the first player to win three straight games since Dustin Johnson in 2017.
Robert MacIntyre and Lucas Glover also shot 64 from the field. MacIntyre ranked fourth with Nick Hardy and Akshay Bhatia under 8 years old.
Scheffler was at the wrong end of one of the Colonial’s biggest comebacks three years ago, when Sam Burns overcame seven-stroke deficits in the final round and beat his best friend on the playoff hole. It was Nick Price’s seven-shot comeback in 1994, when he captured Scott Simpson and won the first extra hole.
Griffin and Schmid had birdies in the first three holes on Saturday to reach the age of 14 and quickly established some separation from elsewhere in other fields. Griffin’s three birdie putts were 7 feet or less, while Schmid had 40 feet on the third hole of 461 yards.
They were bound until Griffin approached No. 5 near the Trinity River and led to Double Boat 6.
Griffin scored two strokes in the 8th birdie and finished 10th at 35 feet. That brought him into the under 13, Schmid was back when he drove into the rough on the right and then hit a bunker on the road to the 637 yards 11 11 bogey.
Scheffler drove away for more than two hours before co-leaders, his Eagle was under 8 after 11th, where he shot the green with two shots and made a 15-foot putt. It was a continuous birdie as No. 9 and No. 10 and started the last 9 at 2½ feet.
But after Schefller hit the bunker at Teefler No. 12 and No. 13, back-to-back bogey followed. He got those strokes back in the birdies of No. 16 and 17, but missed only the Fairway in No. 18 and ended with another bogey.
The only player to win Byron Nelson and the Colonial in the same season was Ben Hogan in 1946. Earlier that month, Scheffler won his beloved hometown of CJ Cup CJ Byron Nelson, when PGA Tour scored eight shots in a 253-under 253.
