DORAL, Fla. — The only thing that might be able to stop J.B. Holmes from winning the WGC-Cadillac Championship is Donald Trump stepping and telling him: “You’re fired!’’
Holmes, who is bidding to become a wire-to-wire winner on Trump’s Doral Blue Monster, will take a five-shot lead into Sunday’s final round. He began the third round with a two-shot lead and went on a birdie barrage at the end of his round to extend the lead.
Holmes’ closest pursuers are Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson, who are 6-under. Ryan Moore, who began the day two shots off the lead, is 5-under, six shots back. Billy Haas, who had the low round of the day at 65, Henrik Stenson and Louis Oosthuizen are both 4-under.
Lee Westwood, Webb Simpson, Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia are all 3-under.
“J.B. is hitting it great and putting it really well,’’ said Moore, who played with Holmes on Saturday. “He’s got four or five less club into each hole than I do. He’s hitting it long and straight and he’s got clubs into holes I can only dream of having. As long as he keeps hitting it straight, he’s got a huge advantage around here.’’
Holmes must enjoy roller coasters and have an iron stomach. Because so far, his ride this week has been a wild one.
And, if he is going to close this out and win — a victory that would be the biggest of his career — Holmes undoubtedly is going to have to power through some more queasy moments.
Sure, he has a big lead. But the way both mercurial Holmes and the Blue Monster — with all of its sand traps and water hazards — have been playing this week no lead seems safe.
One statistic is on his side: Ten of the past 13 winners at Doral have come from the player who had the outright or a share of the lead through 54 holes. So Doral has proven to favor front-runners. It also favors big hitters, and Holmes is one of the biggest hitters in the game.
Holmes, who had been inconsistent all day, late in his round punched it in like jockey asking for a final kick from his horse, going on a four-birdie tear on Nos. 14, 15, 16 and 17 to get to 12-under and take a six-shot lead at the time.
“Obviously you want to make some birdies, but I definitely wasn’t planning on making four [in a row],’’ Holmes said.
Holmes leaked a little oil on the brutal 18th hole, which played 35-over par on Saturday, with a bogey thanks to his tee shot slicing right of the trees and forcing him to lay up.
Asked how he’ll approach playing with the five-shot lead, Holmes said, “I’m just going to approach it the same way I have. On this golf course, you can make some big numbers, so you’ve got to plan to be safe. I’m not going to change my game plan.
“Obviously, if you’re trying to catch up, you have to hit at a few more flags, but that just gets you in trouble out here.’’
Only three players went wire-to-wire to win last year.
Asked what makes that so difficult, Holmes said, “It’s just hard to play a great four days in a row. It’s hard to get very far ahead to where you don’t make a mistake.’’
His pursuers will be watching what Holmes does Sunday.
“This golf course is tough, so I’ve got to go out and put some pressure early and you never know what will happen,’’ Johnson said.
“I can’t worry about what J.B. is doing; this golf course is hard enough as it is,’’ Watson said. “At the end of the day, we’ll add them up and hopefully I can scare him or have a chance for that win.’’
Asked if there is a 64 out there Sunday, Stenson said jokingly: “Yeah, there’s always a 64 in there; it just depends on how many holes you’ve got left to play.
“If I can play really well, of course I can shoot a low number here. If J.B. shoots somewhere around par, we’ll need a round like 64, but if he doesn’t — which can happen on this course — we might not need a number as low as that to catch him.’’