Jon Rahm was happy to take full advantage of some good fortune as a career-best 61, including a hole-in-one, propelled him into contention at the WGC-Mexico Championship.
Rahm enjoyed a red-hot start to his third round and birdied six of the first seven holes before a bogey at eight stalled his challenge, but he revived his charge up the leaderboard with three back-nine birdies ahead of his magic moment on the 17th.
The Spaniard’s arrow-straight gap wedge at the 158-yard par-three landed a few feet short of the hole and hopped straight into the cup on the second bounce for the second ace of the day, following Chez Reavie’s fifth hole-in-one on the PGA Tour at the third just over an hour earlier.
“With the start I had today, the only thing in mind was trying to get as close as possible to the leaders,” said Rahm, whose 10-under round lifted him into the top five on 15 under par.
“If I had a good finish, I was going to have a chance tomorrow, and that’s kind of what gave me a second wind on the back nine.
“After four holes, I basically had tap-in, tap-in, tap-in and 10 feet for birdie, and I thought it could be a really special day, and then backing it up with a great birdie on six and seven and a great tee shot on eight. I had a little bit of a hiccup, a three-putt on the eighth, and it’s just a difficult hole, but everything balances out.
“I think a lot of us like to talk sometimes about how unlucky we get, and I think this was one of those days where I got fortunate.
“I hit the right shots and I got the right bounces, and I took advantage of it. I’m just really happy that, after the first two days I’m going to have a legitimate chance on Sunday without needing to shoot 59 or something like that.
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