Scottie Scheffler gets his first real chance Sunday to chase down Si Woo Kim at THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson, and the defending champion is doing it with a familiar kind of pressure. Kim finished Saturday’s third round at 21-under par and will take a two-shot lead into the final pairing, while Scheffler followed a 6-under 65 with a 19-under total to keep the leaderboard tight at TPC Craig Ranch.
The two will tee off together Sunday in the last group, a pairing that has the feel of a home-course showdown for two players tied to nearby Royal Oaks Country Club. Scheffler, who won last year with a record 31-under-par 253 and an eight-shot margin, sounded eager for another test. “I’m looking forward to the challenge,” he said, adding that it would be “fun” to play with Kim and that having two local players near the top should be good for the community.
Kim earned the lead with a steady 3-under 68, even after bogeys on the 10th and 11th holes briefly slowed him. He finished Saturday with 26 birdies for the tournament and 270 birdies for the year, the most on the PGA TOUR. That pace is part of what has made this week so hard to separate from the field: through three rounds, players have averaged 68.6 strokes a round on the par-71 TPC Craig Ranch, a number that barely looks possible on a course that was supposed to have been reshaped to curb low scoring.
The venue has changed since Scheffler’s romp a year ago. A team led by retired player Lanny Wadkins completed a redesign in less than a year, repositioning 74 bunkers, recreating three waste areas and reshaping all 18 greens as part of a $25 million effort to make the course more resistant to scoring. Instead, an unusually wet spring and almost no wind have helped turn it into another birdie chase. Sunday’s forecast called for a high of 87 degrees with winds of 7 miles an hour, conditions that may still give the players room to keep attacking.
That creates the tension heading into the finish. Kim said after a mistake-filled stretch that his caddie told him, “You’re in a rush, so you’ve got to calm down,” a reminder that even a player piling up birdies can lose control quickly. He also said the course is not one that can be protected, which fits the scoreboard so far. Scheffler, meanwhile, is trying to turn frustration into a title defense, with Kim and Wyndham Clark both close enough that one hot round could reshape everything by the last putt.
For Scheffler, the next 18 holes are not just about catching the leader. They are about proving that a redesigned course, firmer conditions and a stacked field still cannot keep him from turning TPC Craig Ranch into his place.
