One player among John Deere contenders BADLY needs a victory on Sunday

There is a hard reality to the past, present and maybe future in Zac Blair’s professional career.

>The 35-year-old, who stands tied for third place on a tightly packed leaderboard heading into Sunday’s final round of the John Deere Classic, sports a heavy red beard now. It looks like a lumbar jack's movie makeup for those who remember him as the youngster whose cherubic face seemed to match the Utah native’s affable demeanor.

>In his first couple of seasons on the PGA Tour, Blair got onto the leaderboard with some regularity, and 10 years ago he opened the season with a tie for third at the Sony Open in Hawaii.

>That year, Blair made bigger headlines for banging his putter against his head at the Well Fargo Championship and being disqualified for using an altered piece of equipment. It would be another seven seasons before he eclipsed his previous best finish with a T-2 in the 2023 Travelers Championship.

>He won the 2019 Ellie Mae Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour, but, mostly, Blair has lived on the edge of eligibility on the PGA Tour. “Playing golf is pretty stressful,” he said on Saturday after shooting four-under-par 67 at TPC Deere Run in Sylvis, Ill. That result got Blair to 15 under for the tournament, only one shot back of co-leaders Lucas Glover (69) and Lee Hodges (67).

>It seems like every week there are truly career-changing prospects for Sunday contenders, and Blair’s circumstance ranks up there with any of them. The PGA Tour already has announced that starting in the 2028 season, the top 90 finishers on the points list will retain their cards for the following year. The problem for Blair is that he’s only finished in the top 90 once, and that was in his rookie season. In the past nine seasons, his best standing was 93rd, and six times he finished 110th or worse.

>Blair is a golfer with the possibility of never playing in the big leagues beyond 2027, and that’s why securing his first career victory would be enormous.

>“Every start is important,” he said. “Just trying to do a good job of playing well, whichever kind of tour I'm playing on. It's still golf at the end of the day, which is fun.”

>This season, Blair has one top-10 finish and ranks 160th in FedEx Cup points. He was T-8 in Puerto Rico in March and was encouraged by a T-32 in the recent U.S. Open, which was only his seventh start in a major.

>On Saturday, Blair got off to a blazing start with a six-under 29 that included an eagle on the second hole. He cooled off on the back, suffering a double bogey at the 11th and a bogey at the 18th when he drove behind a tree and couldn’t get up and down for par.

>“Just barely missed a bunch of putts,” Blair said. “Had a few bad tee balls that put me kind of behind the 8-ball a little bit. You know, it was a good day all in all.”

>For the co-leaders, Glover, at 46, is trying to break out of his own slump, and Hodges, 31, has a chance at his second career win and first in three years. Both are also well aware that Rickie Fowler shot 63 on Saturday on a course softened by rain, giving any of the 11 players at 11 under or better a decent chance.

>“Other tournaments, courses, whatever, or even here, first couple of days on the green weren't this soft,” Glover said. “Might have played a little conservative. They're not going to be that tomorrow. Everybody is going to have to be aggressive, so I've got to hit it a little better tomorrow to achieve the ultimate goal.”

>Glover, the 2009 U.S. Open champ at Bethpage, won twice in 2023, but he’s struggled with only two top-25 finishes this year and ranks 119th in the FedEx Cup. He does have good feelings about the John Deere on his side—he won the tournament in 2021 and has three other top-10 finishes.

>Hodges recalled on Saturday that in his lone tour win in the 2023 3M Open, he held a five-shot lead going into the final round and “held on,” though he was hardly pressed in winning by seven shots.

>“Tomorrow will be a little more fun,” he said. “I get to go attack and just beat people. Yeah, I'm just going to keep my pedal down and just shoot lower than anybody tomorrow.”