Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri
turned in a decent two-under 69 to jump a couple of places for a share of the tied 26th spot after the
third round of the Northern Trust Open here.
After enduring some bad breaks on the front-nine, for which he was one-over, Lahiri holed four birdies against one bogey on the return journey for a round of two-under 69.
Lahiri is now five-under 208 and two places better than his overnight position.
Meanwhile, two-time Masters champion, Bubba Watson, who has already won once this season at the Hero World Challenge last December, moved to the top with a four-under 67 that gave him a one-shot lead over last year's runner-up Dustin Johnson (68), Jason Kokrak (70) and Chez Reavie (69).
Lahiri, who has made the cut in two of his previous three starts this season, said, "I felt I played ok in the third round. I just got a few tough breaks on the front nine and the putting was not as sharp as it should have been."
"I am looking forward to putting together 18 solid holes tomorrow for a good finish."
On a day, which was mostly sunny and pleasant with little wind, Lahiri found almost as many fairways as the second round, but showed good improvement in the approaches getting to 14 of the 18 greens in regulation.
Lahiri opened with two pars but in both cases he had birdie chances from between 15-17 feet. He finally holed one on the third from nine feet on the par-4 hole. There was a minor setback with a bogey on par-three sixth when a par putt slid past. It was almost similar on par-four eighth.
Things, however, began well on the back-nine, just as they did in the second round with birdies on 10th and 11th.
On the 10th, a fine tee shot was followed a superb approach to under 30 inches and then on par-5 11th he got himself out of the right rough on his third shot to 40 yards and then to four and a half feet for a comfortable birdie putt.
Unfortunately, a bogey on 12th pushed him back. But Lahiri fought back on par-four 15th as he holed a great 23- footer for birdie.
Another birdie came his way on par-five 17th, when he was almost two-on. From around 35 feet, he left himself a three and a half foot putt for a birdie, which he duly holed. He may well have added a final birdie, but a 10-footer went past for a par.
Leader Bubba Watson had five birdies against one bogey and the feature of his third round was much improved work off the tee as he found 10 fairways as against a total of nine in first two rounds. He also showed his fine short game as he got out of trouble on the 18th.
Spieth was alone in the lead for a bit while playing in the morning, but after finishing his round of 65 was tied at the top with Brooks Koepka (64) and Bud Cauley (65).
First-round co-leader Sergio Garcia also joined them after a 66 later in the day.
The last time Crane had led a tournament was going wire-to-wire to win at Memphis two years ago, the last of his five PGA TOUR victories and his last top-10 finish. This is his 48th tournament since.
After the Masters last month, Spieth missed the cut last week at THE PLAYERS Championship. Spieth has hit 33 of 36 greens so far, and the only one he missed yesterday was No. 9, his final hole of the day. He pitched to 11 feet and saved par.
D A Points had nine birdies and a bogey through 13 holes in his second round, then parred the last five holes to finish a round of 62, the best round of the day and nine strokes better than his first round.
Defending champion Steven Bowditch shot 70 on Friday and just made the cut at 2-under 138.
