Ben Griffin and Matti Schmid matched each other again Saturday, and will go into the final round at Colonial tied four strokes ahead of the field with top-ranked Scottie Scheffler lurking.

Griffin and Schmid each shot 2-under 68 after fast starts they didn’t maintain. They were at 13-under 197 after posting the same score for the third straight day at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas. They followed opening 66s and then 63s that put them in the lead together.

“It seems like me and Matti are going to duel it out a little bit tomorrow ... at least try to take advantage of our leads that we currently have over third and fourth,” Griffin said.

They certainly can’t overlook Scheffler, who was tied for seventh place after a 64 that trimmed his 10-stroke deficit to six.

Scheffler, coming off his third major victory at the PGA Championship a week ago, would have been closer if not for three bogeys his last seven holes. But, with another big round on today, he still has a chance to become the first player since Dustin Johnson in 2017 to win in three starts in a row.

Rickie Fowler shot 67 and was alone in third. He will be in the final group with the co-leaders today, when Schmid seeks his first PGA Tour victory and Griffin his first individual title after pairing with Andrew Novak to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans last month.

Robert MacIntyre and Lucas Glover also shot 64. MacIntyre was tied for fourth with Nick Hardy and Akshay Bhatia at 8 under, with Glover two strokes behind that.

LPGA tour

Jenny Bae started with three straight birdies and had a one-shot lead that could have been larger except for a soft finish Saturday in the Mexico Riviera Maya Open.

Bae didn’t make another birdie after the third hole. What held her back were having to settle for pars on easy scoring holes, and then closing with a bogey when it took her two shots to get out of the crushed coral left of the green on the par-5 18th.

Bae was at 7-under 209, and the LPGA rookie faces a big test today — along with just about everyone else chasing her — in a bid for her first LPGA victory.

“I didn’t finish as well as I wanted to, but that’s OK,” Bae said. “Just tells me that I need to fight more the last 18 holes.”

The El Camaleon course at Mayakoba was set up for scoring, with the tees moved up on the par-4 17th to make it reachable with a fairway metal, and the par-5 closing hole. Yahui Zhang of China finished birdie-birdie for a 68 and was at 6-under 210, along with Chisato Iwai of Japan, who also birdied the last two holes.

Another shot back was Gabriela Ruffels of Australia, who had the strongest closing kick of all. Ruffels was 3 over for her round when she holed a 15-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole. On the par-4 16th, the toughest on the back nine, she holed a birdie putt from 20 feet.

PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS

Stewart Cink looked over at the leaderboard late in the third round of the Senior PGA Championship on Saturday and flashed back to younger days for him and many of the other big-name players in the mix.

“It feels like a major out there,” Cink said. “Those names up there have all had some success.”

Retief Goosen and Angel Cabrera were among those tied for first going into the final round, with Cink and Lee Westwood one stroke back and a group including Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh and Y.E. Yang two back. The 11 golfers on or close to the lead have combined to win 13 major championships.