Corey Conners had put himself in a great spot after 36 holes at TPC Sawgrass, but after Saturday, he\u2019s found himself remaining in the very same spot \u2013 with some ground to make up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conners shot an even-par 72 in the third round of The Players Championship \u2013 a round he called \u201cscrappy\u201d in a brief interview with\u00a0Sportsnet.ca\u00a0after his day \u2013 and remained tied for fourth on the leaderboard, the same position he was in after Friday, alongside five other golfers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ludvig Aberg leads at 13 under, with star-in-waiting Michael Thorbjornsen in second at 10 under and Cameron Young in third at 9 under.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although Conners, who is five shots back, leads the entire field in strokes gained: approach the green for the week, he wasn\u2019t as sharp Saturday as he had been the previous two days, hindering his ability to make any sort of charge. A microcosm of that was on the par-5 2nd, where Conners was just 150 yards out in the middle of the fairway but hit his approach to 30 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The third hole was his ultimate undoing, even though it came so early in the day, as he hit a screaming bunker shot to 36 feet and three putted for a double bogey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was playing really tricky out there. I hit a lot of quality shots, but they just weren\u2019t ending up where I wanted them. It was a tough day. The wind, the course was firming up, and it was playing difficult,\u201d Conners said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Canadian made birdies on Nos. 4 and 7 before giving one back on the par-3 8th and another on the par-4 10th, which played as the second-hardest hole of the day. He added birdies on No. 12 and No. 17 to get back to level par for the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was nice to finish strong, Conners said, and he will be in one of the final pairings of the day alongside past Players Championship winner Justin Thomas for Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conners admitted Saturday the 2026 campaign hasn\u2019t gone his way, results-wise, but he\u2019s eager to put a good one on the board this week and hopefully capitalize on some more momentum heading into an important springtime stretch on the calendar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI love this place. Love this event. I have been working hard on my game and just haven\u2019t had the results I\u2019ve wanted this season thus far. But it just takes one good week to change that,\u201d Conners said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping for a really good day tomorrow and it\u2019ll be a great week.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The other Canadians to find the weekend fared slightly better Saturday, with Taylor Pendrith also shooting an even-par 72, Nick Taylor shooting 2-under 70 for the second day in a row, and PGA Tour rookie Sudarshan Yellamaraju firing a tidy 6-under 66 \u2013 the second-lowest round of the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yellamaraju has had a bit of a \u2018welcome-to-the-show\u2019 few days after his unique backstory was covered by popular golf content group The Fried Egg earlier in the week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old is essentially completely self-taught \u2013 having learned the game alongside his father while watching YouTube \u2013 and even now, he doesn\u2019t do much outside of golf except for cooking and, well, watching YouTube.<\/p>\n
Regardless of how he got to the PGA Tour, however, he\u2019s been having a solid rookie campaign so far. Saturday was as good as it gets \u2013 he was leading the field when he wrapped in both strokes gained: approach to green and strokes gained: putting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything was pretty good. I feel like this course it’s like everything has to be good. I drove it well, hit irons well to spots. Even when I missed the greens I hit a lot of good shots, I got up-and-down. Made a few putts when I needed to. Everything was just solid,\u201d Yellamaraju said. \u201cThat’s kind of the golf course really, just everything needs to be really good to be able to score.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yellamaraju, who grew up in Mississauga after immigrating to Canada from India as a youngster, earned his PGA Tour card for this season after finishing in the top 20 in the Korn Ferry Tour points list last year \u2014 winning the second event of the season on the developmental circuit. He\u2019s had a steady start to his 2026 with two top-20 finishes to his credit and has played well enough to earn his way into The Players via his in-season standing in the FedExCup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yellamaraju got off to a dream-like start Saturday, making four birdies in a row on Nos. 3-6 at TPC Sawgrass, highlighted by a 34-footer for birdie on the par-4 6th. He added easy two-putt birdies on both the par fives on the back nine, Nos. 11 and 16, to get into the house.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yellamaraju, who moved to Ponte Vedra in December, said the key to his Saturday effort was patience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just actually just played the good golf that I know I can play,\u201d Yellamaraju said. \u201cI didn’t change anything. My mindset didn’t change. I just executed shots a little better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t expect Yellamaraju to fire up a big celebration Saturday afternoon after his round, however. Golf is both his life and his obsession \u2013 minus cooking and soccer podcasts (plus supporting his team, Manchester United) \u2013 but he\u2019s made it to the top of the golfing mountain and a round like Saturday\u2019s should allow the 24-year-old to believe in being able to continue to perform at a high level.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew my good game had not come yet. I knew I had to stay patient,\u201d Yellamaraju said. \u201cToday kind of finally it came and hopefully that will carry over to tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corey Conners had put himself in a great spot after 36 holes at TPC Sawgrass, but after Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-537110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}