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AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Zach Johnson was feeling nostalgic after his third round at the Masters on Saturday.
Probably felt a bit like the old days while he was playing it.
The 49-year-old Johnson made six birdies during an eight-hole stretch making the turn, and despite a late bogey still managed to shoot 6-under 66. It was the best score by the 2007 champion in 65 career rounds at Augusta National, and one that seemed as if it came out of nowhere — he had gone 28 consecutive rounds at the Masters since his last in the 60s.
“I don’t hit the ball far enough to compete on some of these venues, but it doesn’t mean I can’t have a decent finish. It doesn’t mean I can’t make cuts. It doesn’t mean I can’t still do it,” said Johnson, who insisted that his game had been on an upswing this season. “I don’t know. Today was an extreme, obviously, example of the fruits of my labor showing up.”
Johnson made the cut on the number at 2-over par on Friday. At the time he finished his third round Saturday, he was 4 under for the tournament and in a tie for 11th, a jump of 29 spots on the leaderboard.
His unexpected charge began hours before Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy and the rest of the leaders teed off with a 41-footer for eagle at the par-5 second. But it really got going at the ninth, when Johnson made the first of back-to-back birdies.
At the famous par-3 12th, known as “Golden Bell,” he stuck his approach from 155 yards inside 15 feet for another birdie. On the next, Johnson laid up short of Rae's Creek, hit a wedge to 2 feet and made birdie again. And that patient, conservative approach continued to pay off with another birdie at the par-5 15th, when Johnson dropped another tidy wedge within 3 feet.
His finest shot may have come at the par-3 16th, playing 170 yards over the water. Johnson stuck it inside a foot.
“I think the beauty of what they’ve done the last three days, if you will, has been some pins where you’re like, ‘OK, I can get after this,’" Johnson said. “There's some pins where you're like, ‘If I get out of shape here, I’m in trouble.' And then there's some where it is just like, ‘Hold on. I just want to get out of here and put a par down.’”
Johnson made exactly that at the difficult par-4 finishing hole to finish up his best round in the Masters.
He was one of the few champions ever to finish over par in 2007, when Johnson ended up two shots ahead of Retief Goosen, Rory Sabbatini and Tiger Woods to win his green jacket. He had missed the cut two of the past three years — he hasn’t won since he triumphed in a playoff in a 2015 British Open — and hasn’t had a top-25 finish at the Masters since 2008.
Johnson was quick to credit his pairing with Jon Rahm, the champion two years ago. They fed off each other as they played well before the leaders, and Rahm turned in a 2-under 70 that would've been better if not for back-to-back bogeys to finish it.
Johnson also drew inspiration from 67-year-old Bernhard Langer and 65-year-old Fred Couples, whom he considers something akin to contemporaries. Both of them came to the 18th on Friday with a chance to make the cut; Langer made bogey to miss it by one in his 41st and final Masters, and Couples bogeyed when he needed birdie to miss it by two.
“One-hundred percent, those are my guys. Those are the ones that you look to,” Johnson said. “Yeah, this place can bring out the absolute best in someone, and it starts either taking a left or right down that lane.”
That would be Magnolia Lane. And at that point, Johnson allowed sentimentality to sweep over him.
“Taking somebody down Magnolia Lane for the first time is probably my favorite thing,” he said. “I've seen people cry. Most people are smiling and they're turning on music and things of that nature. It's nostalgic. Yet for whatever reason, you've still got to be where your feet are, and I don't want to say I'm proud, but I'm very happy with the fact that I'm staying present, because you can get caught up in all that. It's really, really easy.”
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AP Masters coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/the-masters
