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By T.J. Auclair
PGATOUR.com Interactive Producer

NORTON, Mass. -- All it took was one shot and it suddenly looked like a great round was about to get away from Arron Oberholser.

If he can keep playing like he has, Arron Oberholser believes he's got a good chance to win on Monday. (Scott Halleran/WireImage)

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

OBERHOLSER THRU 54 HOLES

Category Total Rank Eagles 0 N/A Birdies 17 2 Pars 33 T44 Bogeys 3 T73 Double Bogeys 1 T10 Other 0 N/A Driving Accuracy 69.0% T28 Driving Distance 286.3 yds. T61 Greens in Regulation 66.7% T26 Putts per Round 25.0 T1 Putts per GIR 1.556 1 Sand Saves 100.0% T1

• Arron Oberholser's Player Page

Playing the par-5 18th hole in the third round of the Deutsche Bank Championship -- almost an automatic birdie hole, the easiest on the course Sunday, surrendering 29 birdies and nine eagles -- Oberholser chunked his second shot miserably and found the hazard that guards the front of the green.

"I had 201 to the front, 208 hole, and I had been struggling with my golf swing pretty much all day, really," admitted Oberholser. "I haven't felt comfortable with it. I'm just kind of getting up there and swinging as smoothly and slowly at it as I can.

"And when you get under the gun and under a little bit of pressure like I felt on that shot on 18, you tend to want to give it a little bit more," he said. "You tend to want to what I call kind of goosing it a little bit at the bottom because you know you've got to carry a hazard."

With that, Oberholser took much longer than usual to play his shot and then with his 4-iron, "got underneath it and laid sod over it."

"I got out of my routine because I haven't felt comfortable with the way I'm swinging the golf club this week," he said. "So I should have backed off the ball and started all over again and, like a dummy, I continued with it. I pretty much deserved what I got because I got out of my routine and my process there."

What he got didn't turn out so bad, because it could have been a lot worse. After taking a drop, Oberholser played his fourth shot to about 20 feet and holed the putt for a remarkable par to the delight of the roaring crowds nestled in the grandstands behind the green for a dandy 5-under-par 66 that got him to 12 under, one shot behind leader Brett Wetterich and into the last pairing for Monday's final round.

"There was a wide range of emotions felt on that last hole, from a good drive to, 'oh, my God, I just chunked it into the hazard,' to I hit a mediocre pitch shot, to, 'wow, what a putt.' It'll make dinner taste a little bit better tonight," said Oberholser, who came into the week ranked No. 67 in the FedExCup standings and was projected to finish No. 21 after Sunday's 66.

Perhaps the putt Oberholser made on No. 18 shouldn't be too much of a surprise. This week he's leading the field with an average of just a measly 25 putts per round.

"Over the last three or four months, the putting has really started to come around, and I've really started to start the ball where I'm looking and roll the ball the way I want to, and the speed has been really good this week, and I think that's the key to these greens is just finding the right speed," he said. "Once you get that speed, it's just picking a line, really. I've been able to get a lot of putts to go in this week.

"I think the key to tomorrow's round is just going to be to trust the stuff that I've been working on over the last four or five months in my golf swing and continue to putt the way I've been putting, and I think if I can throw another round like this out there tomorrow, then I think that will be pretty tough to beat."

It may be tough to beat, but there are certainly some guys behind Oberholser who are capable of going way low -- namely the penultimate pairing of Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, who will start the day two and three shots off the lead, respectively.

"Look who's behind me," said Oberholser, whose lone PGA TOUR win came at the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. "I've got the U.S. Open champion [Angel Cabrera] behind me, who shot 65 today; I've got the PGA champion behind me, who three-putted the last two holes to give us all a little bit of a break; and then a three-time major champion in Phil Mickelson right behind me. And then obviously Brett is leading.

"And Brett has won before," he added. "He knows how to do it. And this golf course is right up his alley. We all have our work cut out for us tomorrow, and I do, too, without a doubt. I'm the last guy, considering this is a bomber's golf course by every stretch of the imagination, this is a bomber's golf course, and I'm probably the last guy on that board that most people think will win tomorrow with those names up there. I like that. I like being the underdog."