OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Akshay Bhatia holed out a wedge for an eagle, then one-upped himself with an ace. Rickie Fowler rolled in a 57-foot putt for birdie. Taylor Pendrith’s first tee shot went way left, causing him to re-hit.
Normally, those shots would be mere footnotes by players who aren’t really in contention, but at the BMW Championship, the leaders aren’t the only ones with a lot to play for.
The top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings make it to next week’s Tour Championship, and Sunday’s final round at Caves Valley will be make or break for those on the bubble. Take Bhatia, who came into this event ranked 29th and shot a first-round 75 but has rebounded nicely since then. A 66 on Saturday — featuring those two sensational shots — left him at even par, and he’s now projected at 28th in the FedEx Cup.
“Even when I’m putting, I try and see where my FedEx is projected,” Bhatia said. “Something that I’m aware of and need to, again, focus on what I’m trying to do. But just the nature of the game. You just want to know where you’re at.”
After Saturday’s third round, the last three players projected in the top 30 were Bhatia, Michael Kim and Sungjae Im. The first three out were Chris Gotterup, Fowler and Pendrith.
Fowler narrowly finished in the top 70 in the FedEx Cup to reach the first postseason event in Tennessee, then narrowly moved into the top 50 to make it to Caves Valley. Now he has a chance to narrowly reach the top 30 and move on to next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake — with its $40 million purse.
Call it golf’s version of survive and advance.
Fowler was 48th entering the BMW Championship and is now projected at 32nd after three rounds. He had three straight birdies on the back nine — including the long putt on No. 15 — and is in a three-way tie for eighth this week with Kim and Viktor Hovland.
“Obviously, top five I know will lock it,” Fowler said. “There’s a few other factors outside of that depending on finish from there. But go put together a nice round tomorrow and we’ll be good.”
Kim began the tournament in 42nd place and has moved up to 29th. He made a double bogey on No. 15, then birdied 16 and nearly holed out from a bunker on the par-3 17th — all events that impacted Kim and those competing with him to make the top 30.
Pendrith’s round began with that horrendous tee shot, and he needed to hit out of a bunker to 18 inches to salvage a double bogey on No. 1. He played fine after that, but it’s fair to wonder if that one big mistake could be the difference between making it to East Lake and being left out.
“Just a little bit of a shock to the system,” Pendrith said. “I have been driving it really nicely all week, and yeah, I don’t really know where that came from. Just a bad swing.”
The margin of error is small for Pendrith. It was bigger for Im, who entered the tournament in 25th place but shot 75 and 77 the last two days to fall to 30th.
Harry Hall has made the biggest move up this week, jumping from 45th to 25th. He’s tied for fourth in the tournament, eight strokes behind leader Robert MacIntyre.
As for Bhatia, he’s basically back where he started, but it was an eventful trip. He holed a sand wedge from 93 yards on the par-4 seventh, then aced the 227-yard 17th with a 5-iron. The latter shot won him a BMW, which he said he might give to his caddie.
It’s fair to say that 75 a couple days earlier was well in the rear-view mirror.
“Took myself out of the tournament pretty quick,” Bhatia said. “But I felt like if I can kind of go shoot 2 under each day, it’s a nice goal, just because if I get it to 1 under par with how hard this golf course is, you just never know. Again, every shot counts. I don’t want to just shrug it in and not make it to the finish line. I want to try everything I can. Yesterday I finished nice, and today was even better.”
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