HOYLAKE, England — The hug Jon Rahm gave his parents after finishing his round at the British Open on Saturday felt a lot better than the one gave he gave them a day earlier.

On Friday, he struggled just to make the cut. This time, he shot the lowest round ever at Royal Liverpool at the Open to put himself back in contention to win the claret jug. He will go into the final round in third place, six shots behind leader Brian Harman.

“Today it wasn’t a consolation hug,” Rahm said after an 8-under 63 that was his best round in any major. “Days like these are a lot of fun.”

It was a stark contrast to the frustration over the first two days. Rahm left Hoylake upset with his misses, and complaining about the amount of people who got in his way while he played with Rory McIlroy.

“I was playing good golf and I knew what I was capable of,” Rahm said. “I was frustrated because … of the mistakes that I made. I gave up the shots at major championships that are very costly, and that’s mainly it. That’s what I was feeling.”

It was different on Saturday.

Rahm began the day at 2-over par, 12 shots behind Harman. The Spaniard made eight birdies and no bogeys, shooting 30 on the back nine. By the time he finished his round, about the same time Harman was starting, Rahm was only four shots off the lead.

Royal Liverpool was the only course in the Open’s modern rotation that had not yielded a score lower than a 65 until Saturday.

“The job today was to come out and give myself the best opportunity I could. Whenever you get a birdie, just thinking about one more. That’s simply all you can do,” Rahm said. “I’ve done what I’ve needed, which is give myself an opportunity.”

With the rough not too long, Rahm said his game plan was to use the driver off the tee as often as possible to try to avoid the penalizing pot bunkers on the fairways.

“I was very comfortable off the tee,” he said. “When you are comfortable off the tee, it’s very easy to stay aggressive.”

Rahm said it was one of those days in which he could execute everything he visualized ahead of his shots.

“It doesn’t happen often where you see those shots come out the way they’re supposed to and put them in the spots you’re supposed to,” Rahm said. “You see everything the way it’s supposed to happen unfold, and it’s very unusual.”

Rahm won the Masters in April for his second major title and leads the tour with four wins this season. A victory at Hoylake would put him alongside Seve Ballesteros as the only Spaniards to win the Open. Ballesteros won in 1979, 1984 and 1988.

TWO BROTHERS teed off within an hour and a half of each other in the third round of the British Open.

For the parents of Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick, it might have been a case of split loyalties as they weighed up which of their sons to follow at Royal Liverpool on Saturday.

“I told them to go focus on him,” said Matt, the U.S. Open champion last year and the older of the siblings by four years. “That’s more important. This is my, what, ninth? So they’ve seen all nine of those.”

They were treated to quite the show by Alex, whose first Open – indeed, his first appearance at a major championship – is going better than he can ever have imagined.

He birdied three of his last four holes to shoot 6-under 65 and move into a tie for ninth place, a highly improbable scenario for a player ranked No. 561 and who has golfed in his brother’s shadow.

Alex’s score would have tied the record for the low score in 13 Opens held at Royal Liverpool had Jon Rahm not finished a 63 a half hour earlier.

“I’m not familiar with this environment and the amount of people out here,” said Alex, who plays on the second-tier Challenge Tour. “But me and my caddie had a great time and things went our way, which was super cool.”

Alex came through local qualifying this month to secure his spot at the Open. He enters the final round at 4 under for the tournament – two shots ahead his brother, who also moved up the leaderboard with a 67.

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