HONOLULU — Stephan Jaeger had nine birdies for the lowest round this week at Waialae Country Club, but two of the most important holes for him Saturday were pars.
The 35-year-old Chattanooga resident knows dropping a shot is losing ground, and the way the PGA Tour's Sony Open is playing out, no one can afford to do that at a tournament that is wide open going into the final round.
J.J. Spaun twice responded to bogeys with birdies in the closing stretch at Waialae, the last one a pitch-and-putt effort on the par-5 18th that gave him a 5-under-par 65 in the third round and a one-shot lead over Jaeger, Eric Cole (67) and Patrick Fishburn (68) through 54 holes.
Jaeger had a 62 that included a birdie putt from just less than 60 feet on No. 8, his 17th hole of the round. Afterward, though, the former Baylor School and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga standout from Germany thought back to the bunker shot on the par-3 fourth to two feet to save par, along with another bunker shot on the par-3 seventh and a six-foot par save.
"I had just made two birdies the previous holes, and I hit it in the bunker, and I hit the bunker shot close so I didn't really have to grind very hard," Jaeger said. "But to make par there kind of kept the momentum going, and I birdied a couple holes after that."
Spaun was at 13-under 197, and there were 14 players within three shots of his lead.
That's usually the case at the Sony Open. This old-school course, with its doglegs and deep bunkers and unpredictable Bermuda rough, has a way of staying bunched until the very end.
Jaeger is best known to golf fans for his Houston Open win over Scottie Scheffler last March during the world's top-ranked player's most dominant part of a most dominant year. Jaeger was six shots behind going into the third round at Waialae. He also had 40 players between him and the two players atop the leaderboard.
"You're in limbo at that point," Jaeger said. "You're either going to have a great round and have a chance or ... to shoot a great round and be in contention is nice."
Jaeger wound up 35th out of the 58 players who finished last Sunday at The Sentry, the season-opening tournament at Kapalua Resort on Maui and a $20 million signature event, and he was 20 shots behind record-setting winner Hideki Matsuyama. Things are going much better for Jaeger on Oahu in the second half of the PGA Tour's Hawaii swing.
This is the first full-field event of 2025, and Jaeger was joined by his three fellow Baylor graduates on the tour when it teed off Thursday. Harris English missed the cut Friday, while Keith Mitchell (69) was tied for 56th at 4 under and Luke List (72) was tied for 71st at 1 under.
Fishburn, in his Sony Open debut as a second-year player out of Utah, was the only player to reach 14 under with his birdie on the par-5 ninth to go out in 31 and create some separation. He made only one birdie the rest of the way, blasting a drive 360 yards with the wind at his back and hitting a flip wedge that rolled over the cup. He also made three bogeys, and he failed to birdie the par 5 closing hole.
Fishburn dropping a few shots brought many back into the tournament.
Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley birdied his last two holes for a 64 and was in the group two shots behind that included Canada's Nick Taylor (65), former British Open champion Brian Harman (66) and Chile's Nico Echavarria, the Zozo Championship winner in Japan last fall who played bogey-free in the wind for a 66.
"As soon as we made the turn there, the conditions got quite a bit harder," Fishburn said. "A lot of the wind was hard off the left with pins on the left, so it was a tricky setup."
The group three shots behind included Lucas Glover and Gary Woodland, who returned from brain surgery at the Sony Open a year ago and took until later in the year before he got his brain functioning the right way through breathing and meditation exercises.
Woodland, who had a second straight 66, has played at Waialae enough to know it's usually bunched — Justin Thomas was the exception in 2017 when he set the PGA Tour's scoring record at 253 — and that a winner can come out of nowhere.
"If you can get hot, you can make a run," Woodland said. "It wouldn't shock me if someone came from behind and posted a number. Everything is trending in the right direction. A couple of guys posted a good number. Hopefully, that's me tomorrow."
Jaeger stood out with the low round of the tournament. He made a pair of 20-foot birdies on his first nine holes — he started on No. 10 — and got a big boost from that long birdie putt on No. 8. He finished with a wedge to four feet for birdie on the par-5 ninth.
"I played pretty aggressively off the tee, a lot of drivers. If I can get them in the fairways, I'll have a lot of shorter shots in," said Jaeger, who is chasing the second win of his PGA Tour career after winning six times on the developmental Korn Ferry Tour from 2016 to 2021. "If you miss the fairways, you're going to have to be creative to get those balls on the greens and get good birdie putts.
"Nothing will change. Game feels nice, so I'm excited about tomorrow."
Spaun effectively starts from the pole position Sunday with a lot of cars revved up behind him.
"I've felt pretty calm and relaxed out there. It's been a fun week here in Hawaii," he said. "It's always laid back and easygoing. I've been carrying that mindset on the course, and it's easy to feel that way when things are going your way and you're playing well. Just try to hone in on that tomorrow and see what happens."