Playing out of the penultimate twosome, World No. 97 Troy Merritt finished eagle-bogey-birdie en route to a 3-under-par 35-34=69 in the third round of the Fortinet Championship, up one spot into a five-way T3 on 12-under 204, two back of co-leaders Jim Knous (65) and Maverick McNealy (70).
The 35-year-old, who’s getting a little worse each day (67-68-69), is still in the mix for his third TOUR win in 259 events, first since the 2018 opposite-field Barbasol as a 54-hole quad-leader. His first victory, the 2015 Quicken Loans, was also as a 54-hole co-leader, so he’ll attempt is first come-from-behind victory out of the third-to-last pairing in R4 with Mito Pereira. On 11 (of 14) fairways and 12 greens in regulation, the Boise State product outpaced two bogeys at holes 2 and 17 (failed sand saves), with three birdie-4s at 5, 9 and 18, and an eagle-3 at 16 from 5'8" after a stellar approach from 261 yards. He lost strokes on approach (-0.123) and around (-0.349), but gained 1.505 off-the-tee and 0.353 on-the-green.