In a week in which Aussies have been prominent at the completion of play each day at TPC Craig Ranch, Day’s third round of five-under 66 puts him two strokes back of Austin Eckroat (63), Ryan Palmer (68) and Zecheng Dou (64) who are tied at 16-under.

Eckroat and Dou are both chasing a maiden PGA TOUR title as Day seeks to add a 13th, tied for fourth with Sweden’s Vincent Norman (65), Si Woo Kim (68) and Scottie Scheffler (71) at 14-under par.

The 35-year-old Queenslander believes he will need at least six-under 65 on Sunday to apply pressure to the leaders and to keep the likes of Scheffler and Kim at bay.

“It doesn’t get easier, but you can handle the conditions a lot easier and handle the pressure easier,” Day said of being in contention yet again.

“You can’t control what a guy is going to go out there and shoot tomorrow, but you can control your attitude and your emotions and just keep pushing along.

“Hopefully if you give yourself somewhere around the lead on the back nine on a Sunday, you never know what happens.

“The plan for tomorrow is try and get myself into contention and see how it goes on the back side.

“It’s a course that yields a lot of birdies, so it’s kind of anyone can win, just depending on how much they want to go low.

“I’m thinking somewhere around the 20-mark, low 20s will probably win it.”

After a frustrating day with the putter on Friday Day made birdie putts from 16 feet and just inside five feet at two at two and three to give his third round early momentum.

He two-putted the par-5 fifth for birdie to continue his early charge and made a good par save from the greenside bunker on six to stop his round from potentially stalling.

Day holed a 17-footer for a fourth birdie on 11 and then get up and down at the short par-4 14th for his fifth birdie of the day, a poor chip on 16 resulting his lone bogey of the round.

A second shot that found the greenside bunker gave Day a chance at a closing birdie on 18, converting his birdie putt from 18 feet to end the day just two off the lead.

“It was good to be able to hole that putt,” Day admitted.

“Good momentum going into tomorrow. Get some rest, get into it tomorrow.”

In a condensed leaderboard, Aaron Baddeley (66) and Adam Scott (68) are both in a tie for 15th at 11-under but unfortunately both Greg Chalmers (73) and Harrison Endycott (74) slid down to a tie for 63rd with one round to play. PGA TOUR debutant David Micheluzzi (67) is in a tie for 49th.

Cameron Smith will start the final round of the LIV Golf Tulsa Invitational six shots back of Dustin Johnson and in a tie for fifth after a second round of two-under 68.

Following on from a 64 on day one, Smith had back-to-back bogeys at two and three but picked up three shots in the space of six holes from the 13th to move to eight-under for the tournament.

In the first senior major of the year, Victorian Richard Green produced one of the best rounds on day three to move into a tie for 12th.

Outside the top 30 at the start of the third round, Green made six birdies in seven holes to close out a front nine of six-under 30, picking up two more shots at 12 and 17 in a round of seven-under 65 and nine-under total.

Steve Stricker (64) and Robert Karlsson (63) lead by two strokes at 16-under par with one round to play.