Zac Blair is well placed to land his first-ever PGA Tour title after a six-under round of 64 gave him a share of the lead with Brandt Snedeker at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
It could have been better for the 25-year-old but he missed a two-foot putt for birdie on the last hole.
Snedeker himself also came close to taking an outright lead but he missed birdie putts of 10 and 12 feet on the 17th and 18th hole respectively.
That left Blair and Snedeker tied for the lead on a 16-under-par total of 194, one shot clear of Kevin Kisner and two ahead of Si Woo Kim of South Korea.
Kisner dropped his only shot of the day on the 17th but immediately got the shot back with birdie on the 18th to finish a round of 66.
Padraig Harrington only managed a round of one under par to move to seven under and dropped down to tied 39th.
Shot of the Day: Steve Stricker plays a perfect golf shot. https://t.co/CybmVA6C2i
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 17, 2016
"I obviously don't hit it as far as most of the guys out here," Blair told reporters.
"But at the end of the day, I think it just kind of comes down to getting the ball in the hole, and if you're able to do that, you obviously seem to be finding yourself at the top of the leaderboard more often than not."
Matt Kuchar closed with six straight birdies for a 62 - a round that included two bogeys - and he lies five shots off the pace.
