Si Woo Kim closed the third round Saturday at 21-under par and took a two-shot lead over Scottie Scheffler and Wyndham Clark into the final day of THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney, Texas. Kim shot a 3-under 68, while Scheffler answered with a 6-under 65 to reach minus-19 and match Clark, setting up a final pairing between two players who know each other well.
Kim did his best work late. He birdied the 12th, 14th and 15th holes, then said his caddie had to slow him down after the surge. “After that, my caddie told me, ‘You’re in a rush, so you’ve got to calm down,’” Kim said. The round left him one short of the TOUR 54-hole record, and it added to a season in which he has made more birdies than any other PGA TOUR player. His total of 26 birdies on the week also reflected how little resistance the course has offered through three rounds.
Scheffler and Kim are friends from nearby Royal Oaks Country Club, and the Sunday pairing gives the local crowd a matchup between two of the tournament’s biggest names. Scheffler said he was looking forward to the challenge and added that it is always fun to play with Kim because it is good for the community to have two local players near the top. Clark, who joined Scheffler at minus-19, said he prefers when par matters more, usually on tougher courses.
That has not been the case at TPC Craig Ranch this week. The par-71 course has played to a field average of 68.6 strokes a round through three rounds, a figure that underscores how soft conditions have been after rain and with almost no wind. The setup was supposed to be harder after a renovation finished in less than a year at a cost of $25 million, with 74 bunkers, 18 greens and new contours intended to make scoring more difficult. Instead, low numbers keep piling up, and last year’s standard is still the benchmark: Scheffler shot a record 31-under-par 253 here and won by eight.
The forecast for Sunday calls for a high of 87 degrees with winds of 7 miles an hour, which should give the leaders another chance to go low. If the course stays this playable, the final round may come down less to survival than to who can keep making birdies faster than everyone else. For Kim, that means protecting a lead in a tournament that has turned into a sprint, not a test.
