Moving Day at the 2024 Players Championship was filled with fireworks from start to finish with Xander Schauffele emerging late to take the solo lead entering the final round at 17 under. Schauffele was flawless around TPC Sawgrass en route to a third-round 65 as he more than erased the four-stroke advantage that Wyndham Clark held at the beginning of the day.
Schauffele has made just one mistake across his first 54 holes at TPC Sawgrass: a double bogey Friday on the par-5 11th hole. Ever since, the Olympic gold medalist has played his last 25 holes in 10 under and will take a one-stroke lead over Clark into the deciding final day.
Clark, the reigning U.S. Open champion, pushed his lead out to five after an opening birdie but struggled with his ball striking for the majority of his round. He did well to keep his head above water, but Schauffele kept coming, and thanks to four front-nine birdies, the lead was trimmed to just one by the time the two made the turn.
Schauffele pressed his foot on the gas on the inward half and finally took the solo lead once a birdie from outside 50 feet dropped on the difficult par-4 14th. Clark climbed back into a share of the lead with a birdie on 16, but his presence atop the leaderboard would be short lived as he chunked his tee shot on the par-3 17th.
Electing to retee, Clark did well to make bogey on the island green and walked off just one adrift. The margin remained the same after one last exchange of pars on the 18th.
Clark and Schauffele have made a habit over the last year to play well at the same tournaments, such as the Wells Fargo Championship and U.S. Open. Clark got the better of Schauffele in both instances, but the Californian hopes to flip the script on Sunday.
To say this tournament is down to those two golfers would be doing an injustice to a litany of major champions still in contention. Brian Harman has caught fire the last two days and is only two off Schauffele's lead at 15 under. Meanwhile, both Matt Fitzpatrick and Scottie Scheffler are still in the mix at 13 under and 12 under, respectively, thanks to fast finishes to their third rounds.
Let's take a look at the rest of the leaderboard and what else happened in Round 3.
2024 Players Championship leaderboard
1. Xander Schauffele (-17): Schauffele opened his third round by missing a 5-foot birdie bid on No. 1, but he brushed it off like a champ. Seven birdies across his next 13 holes without a single mistake sprinkled in was enough to overtake Clark by one heading into Sunday. Schauffele has been both rightly and wrongly criticized for his ability to close, but his last two 54-hole leads did result in victories in 2022 at the Scottish Open and Travelers Championship. This is undeniably a larger stage than those two events and will be a good barometer to see whether Schauffele is one of those players who can make the leap to becoming a major champion in the future.
2. Wyndham Clark (-16): As easy as the first two rounds were for Clark, the third was just as difficult. He fought his swing for most of the day ranking outside the top 50 in terms of strokes gained off the tee and approach. Clark was 2 under through his first seven holes and then played his final 11 in even par, but he did well just to do accomplish that uch. He found the water off the tee on the drivable par-4 12th and made a sensational par to keep pace with Schauffele. His second water ball of the back nine on 17 dropped him out of the lead but still he has a great chance for win No. 4 in less than a year.
3. Brian Harman (-15): Harman revealed Friday that he experienced some of the best tournament preparation of his career ahead of this week's event. Frustrated with an opening 72, the Champion Golfer of the Year has come back with rounds of 65 and 64 to catapult himself into contention. His 129 total is a tournament record across any two rounds. Over those last 36 holes, the Georgia Bulldog has carded 17 birdies and an eagle, but it was a bogey on Saturday that he may make him smile the most. Making bogey on the par-5 9th, Harman took an unplayable, played a couple shots right-handed and somehow came off the green have dropped only one shot. It could prove large Sunday.
T4. Matt Fitzpatrick, Maverick McNealy (-13): The fight from Fitzpatrick on Saturday was that of a major champion. Alongside Nick Taylor, who endured a horrible third round, the former U.S. Open winner was in jeopardy of following suit. For the second straight round, the Englishman made double bogey on the short par-4 4th and found himself 2 over through his first eight holes and as many as seven off the lead. Six birdies across his final 10 holes, including four in his final five (and a nice par save after finding the water on the par-5 16th), pushed Fitzpatrick back inside the top five and back into this tournament.
T6. Scottie Scheffler, Sahith Theegala (-12): It was obvious the world No.1 was not 100% as the neck still posed a problem. Scheffler's swing was noticeably slower, reducing to his usual speed on the front nine, and he struggled with distance control at times. Still, the best player in the world battled and was 1 under through his first six holes. Nine straight pars in the middle of his round dampened any thought of a massive Moving Day, but Scheffler finished strong with three straight birdies to give himself a chance to become the first man ever to go back-to-back at the Players Championship. With his 68, Scheffler has now shot under par in 26 straight rounds.
"It was tough," Scheffler said. "I was battling my swing a little bit today, but overall, I'm pleased being able to get in the house in a few under par. I wouldn't say I'm out of the tournament. I'm definitely on the outside looking in, but a hot day tomorrow could go a long way."
T9. Hideki Matsuyama, J.T. Poston, Taylor Montgomery (-10): Matsuyama has been solid with rounds of 69-69-68; he has positioned himself to play spoiler yet again if he is able to catch the same type of heater that led him to victory last month at the Genesis Invitational. Matsuyama entered the final round six adrift at Riviera and will need to be one better from seven back.
T12. Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Åberg, Doug Ghim, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, C.T. Pan (-9): McIlroy added to his tournament total of 21 birdies in his third-round 69. Unfortunately, he also added a double bogey for the third straight day. Outside of the blemish on the par-4 14th, the 2019 champion was near flawless as he took advantage of accessible holes like 11 and 12 and finished with a flurry of three consecutive birdies to end. He will have a chance to take down the tournament record in terms of birdies (26) but is probably too far back to be a factor on Sunday.
Better than most?
A blast from the past occurred on the par-3 17th when Ghim's tee shot found the upper shelf of the putting surface with the pin on the lower front portion. Electing to chip from the rough bordering the green, the 27-year-old plopped his ball in the air, watching it traverse across the green, down the slope and into the bottom of the cup. Exerting an uppercut fist pump like Tiger Woods in 2001, Ghim gave the TPC Sawgrass faithful something to cheer and a reason for golf fans everywhere to reminiscence.
"It was actually funny that you asked that because Shane [Ghim's caddie] told me that -- it seems like you have the 'better-than-most' shot coming up," said Ghim. "It seemed like ours was a little harder because it was in the rough and it was a chip and it was not a great lie. But man, it looked better on TV than it did in person."