By Christopher Powers
Jordan Spieth has had his moments this year, a 65 at Torrey Pines, a 64 at Riviera and a 66 at Harbour Town among them. Up until his gritty performance at the PGA Championship though, he didn’t have much to show for it, failing to register a single finish inside the top 20 prior to his T-3 at Bethpage. He just hasn’t been able to put four good rounds together.

It looked like a similar story was playing out for Spieth on Friday at Colonial, where he followed up a first-round 65 at the Charles Schwab Challenge with a front-nine, two-over 37 in his second round. But he fought back to shoot a two-under 33 on the back, with birdies at 16 and 18, the second of which came from 18 feet.

It proved to be the momentum he needed heading into Saturday, a day he began by holing birdie putts of 30 and 20 feet at the first and second holes, continuing his red-hot play on the greens (1st in the field in strokes-gained/putting). He eventually posted a two-under 68 with just one bogey despite hitting only four fairways, putting him just two off the lead of Kevin Na, who fired a one-under 69.

Tied with Spieth are C.T. Pan (68), Tony Finau (71) and Jim Furyk (68), who was coming off three consecutive missed cuts entering the week. He’s looking for his fourth top-10 in just 14 starts on Sunday, and a win would be his first since the 2015 RBC Heritage.