Tennessee Native Brandt Snedeker Still in Contention at Masters

Brandt Snedeker

Brandt Snedeker reached 2-under early in his Saturday round only to finish in green, but he’s still in contention.

Snedeker is four shots behind leader Jordan Spieth and in the top 10 at 1-over.

Despite finding a bunker on the second hole, Snedeker got to within 2 feet for a short birdie putt to reach 2-under. He carded only one more birdie to go with four bogeys the rest of the third round.

Let’s take a quick look at the top of the leaderboard:

1. Jordan Spieth (-3): Spieth said that he has to “throw away” the finish to today’s round, clear the scoreboard and know that he has to shoot the best score of the day to win. Spieth hasn’t had one of the 10 lowest scores since shooting a 66 on Thursday — he hasn’t even been under par — but it’s hard to bet against the defending champion on the verge of becoming the first two-year wire-to-wire major winner ever.1

2. Smylie Kaufman (-2): Kaufman lives with his parents, drives a Nissan Moreno and happened to have one of the best rounds of the tournament with a 69 on Saturday, the first sub-70 round since Thursday. Birdies on 13, 14 and 16 gave him a 34 on the second nine and a spot in the final pairing with Spieth on Sunday at the Masters.

T3. Bernhard Langer (-1): Langer birdied all four par-fives on the course on Saturday as part of a six-birdie tear through Augusta on Saturday. A bogey on 18 was the only thing keeping Langer, the 58-year old two-time champion with a long putter, from joining Smylie in the sub-70 club on Moving Day.

T3. Hideki Matsuyama (-1): Matsuyama was in striking distance after a long 27-foot birdie putt on 14, but like Spieth, had some troubles down the stretch with bogeys on 16 and 17. After finishing in fifth a year ago this is not a spot we are shocked to see Matsuyama occupy heading into Sunday, but the ride to get here (12 birdies, 11 bogeys) has been a fun one to follow.

T5. Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Danny Willett (E): Best pairing of the day on Sunday? It might be Johnson and Day, both needing to go low in order to put some pressure on Spieth down the stretch. A 69-foot putt was the highlight of Day’s first round under par this week. Day will need a big day himself and a little help to chase down Spieth and capture a green jacket, but he’s in striking distance and after the ups and downs of the last two days that’s all he can ask for.

Willett has been steady this week, shooting an even-par 72 after going 70-74 in the first two rounds. The birdies have been there for Danny, at least enough to consider him a dark horse on Sunday, but four bogeys on Sunday (his high for one round this week) suggest he could move the other way as well.

T8. Brandt Snedeker, Soren Kjeldsen, Lee Westwood (+1): Westwood had one of the few rare red numbers on the day, joining Snedeker and Kjeldsen in the top 10 after both players shot a 74 on Saturday.

Courtesy of cbssports.com

[scroller style=”sc1″ title=”More Sports” display=”cats” cats=”4″ number_of_posts=”4″ speed=”300″]