PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Two years ago, Arron Oberholser let a golden opportunity to earn his first PGA TOUR win get away from him. Sunday, he gets a second chance.

After shooting a 6-under 66 at Pebble Beach to move into a first place tie with Mike Weir at 17 under after three rounds at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Oberholser insists unlike in 2004, he’s ready to be in the final pairing.

“I was a deer in headlights two years ago,” he said of playing with Vijay Singh. “I was going against, in my opinion, the No. 1 player in the world. He was winning everything. I wasn’t present at all that entire day. I did not hit a lot of committed golf shots. I did not hit a lot of committed putts. And I couldn’t find my rhythm at all. I was too busy paying attention to him and not enough to what I was doing.

“I let the moment get away from me,” he said. “I was too busy contemplating other things and too busy worrying about having to match him shot for shot rather than playing my game.”

Now, his game is ready because his head finally caught up with the rest of his body.

“When I was younger, I took big leaps physically and technique-wise in my game to get better and I was able to beat my competition because I was better physically and technique wise,” Oberholser said. “Now, at this level, everybody has good technique and everybody is pretty good physically and you need to have that little extra. I’ve finally realized at 31 it’s the six inches between your ears.”

Actually, he was taught that lesson by Chuck Hogan, who worked with Oberholser from his senior year in college to his rookie year on TOUR. Hogan said it might take a day, a month, a year, or five or six years to sink in. Who knew it would be the latter?

“I’m just got past the point of making a big deal out of this stuff and just going out about my business and just trying to commit to every golf shot, hit it, go find it and hit it again,” Oberholser said.

Two years ago, he couldn’t do that. Now, he’s noticeably different.

“I’m a little wiser, a little older, more experienced and I’m really starting to not sweat the small stuff,” he said. “I’m not going to get too ticked off at bad shots like I used to. I still have my occasional ‘What were you thinking?’ moments, but for the most part, those days are behind me.”

Want proof? Check out the first hole on Saturday. Oberholser hits a solid drive down the middle that ends up with, as Oberholser put it, “a clump of mud the size of the rock of Gibraltar on my ball.” The old Arron would have seethed. The new Arron gets over it quickly. No cussing. No being ticked off. He just played the ball as best he could. It was a bogey and even though he had a long wait at the second tee, he refused to get angry.

“It’s taken the better part of a year to find that peace where you can wake up in the morning and just feel good no matter what is going on,” Oberholser said. “I had a rough year personally last year and I had a rough year physically so my mind was in other places and I wasn’t able to perform up to my standards. So I made some changes during the offseason to doing certain things in my life that I thought would make me not only a better golfer, but more importantly, a better person.”

These days, Oberholser, who went to college at San Jose State and calls this a home game, is enjoying everything. He’s talking about the sun shining, about the crowds swelling, about how nice it is to hear the hometown fans get behind him. He’s doing everything but jumping on Oprah’s couch.

“I woke up [Saturday] morning saying I’m going to have a good time no matter what I shoot today and I’m going to wake up and say the same thing [Sunday] morning. If you go out and do the things you know you can do and let the cards fall where they may, it might happen or it might not. But at least you can look yourself in the mirror and say I gave it my best shot.”