AUGUSTA, Ga. — Zach Johnson was feeling nostalgic after his third round at the Masters on Saturday.
Probably felt a bit like the old days while he was playing it.
The 49-year-old Johnson made six birdies during an eight-hole stretch making the turn, and despite a late bogey still managed to shoot 6-under 66. It was the best score by the 2007 champion in 65 career rounds at Augusta National, and one that seemed as if it came out of nowhere — he had gone 28 consecutive rounds at the Masters since his last in the 60s.
''I don't hit the ball far enough to compete on some of these venues, but it doesn't mean I can't have a decent finish. It doesn't mean I can't make cuts. It doesn't mean I can't still do it,'' said Johnson, who insisted that his game had been on an upswing this season. ''I don't know. Today was an extreme, obviously, example of the fruits of my labor showing up.''
Johnson made the cut on the number at 2-over par on Friday. At the time he finished his third round Saturday, he was 4 under for the tournament and in a tie for 11th, a jump of 29 spots on the leaderboard.
His unexpected charge began hours before Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy and the rest of the leaders teed off with a 41-footer for eagle at the par-5 second. But it really got going at the ninth, when Johnson made the first of back-to-back birdies.
At the famous par-3 12th, known as ''Golden Bell,'' he stuck his approach from 155 yards inside 15 feet for another birdie. On the next, Johnson laid up short of Rae's Creek, hit a wedge to 2 feet and made birdie again. And that patient, conservative approach continued to pay off with another birdie at the par-5 15th, when Johnson dropped another tidy wedge within 3 feet.
His finest shot may have come at the par-3 16th, playing 170 yards over the water. Johnson stuck it inside a foot.
