There’s bound to be pressure for Chile’s Mito Pereira during Sunday’s final round of the PGA Championship.

But being in this position is something he wants.

“Of course, I don’t have any experience playing in the final pairing in a major, but I guess I worked for it my whole life basically,” Pereira said.

Pereira birdied three of the final six holes of the third round for a 1-under-par 69 and a three-shot lead as golfers contended with windy and cool conditions Saturday at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.

Pereira is at 9-under 201 going into Sunday.

Second-round leader Will Zalatoris and England’s Matt Fitzpatrick share second place at 6 under, and Cameron Young is in fourth at 5 under. Fitzpatrick and Young posted 67s, while Zalatoris shot 73.

Tiger Woods shot 9-over 79 and withdrew. It’s the first time Woods has withdrawn from a major as a professional, though the announcement shortly after all golfers finished the round wasn’t unexpected. A few hours earlier, he said he was sore and would assess his situation.

Zalatoris recovered from a horrid opening stretch when he carded bogeys on four of the first seven holes.

Pereira, who played collegiately for Texas Tech, has never won on the PGA Tour and has three top-10 finishes this season in 27 tournaments.

Pereira was a shot behind Zalatoris when the round began, but he moved to the top right away. He was 2 under for the round through five holes, but then he recorded four bogeys before his next birdie came at No. 13.

“Never take anything for granted, I was playing so good,” Pereira said. “I wasn’t really nervous, just a couple of bad shots. You’ve just got to really keep your head in the moment.”

Young, who benefitted from an eagle on No. 17, and Zalatoris are former college teammates at Wake Forest. Fitzpatrick is the older brother of current Wake Forest golfer Alex Fitzpatrick.

“I was really pleased with the round,” Fitzpatrick said after birdies on the last two holes. “I feel I’ve put myself in a lot of winning positions in Europe before and I’ve come out with some good results.”

Mexico’s Abraham Ancer (70) is fifth at 4 under and Ireland’s Seamus Power (67), who rolled in four birdie putts in his last seven holes, holds sixth place at 3 under.

“I noticed a massive difference, obviously less guys on the course, and the greens are much smoother,” Power said. “For me, I was able to take advantage, make a few extra putts, and the rest of it was figuring out, like I said, the kind of whole new golf course, whole new targets.”

Bubba Watson followed Friday’s 63 with 73, putting him tied for seventh with Stewart Cink (71) and Justin Thomas (74) at 2 under. Watson made an early charge before playing the backside in 4 over.

First-round leader Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland shot 74 and is even for the tournament and tied for 17th place.

Webb Simpson, another Wake Forest alum, shot 65 for the best score of Saturday’s round. That moved him to 1 under and into a seven-way tie for 10th place.

“I didn’t expect it on a day like today to get a nice few under in a short amount of time, but I’ll take it,” said Simpson, who finished his round before some golfers began their third rounds.

Woods’ 79 was his highest score in a round in PGA Championship play, slipping to 12-over 222 for the tournament and tied for 76th place. Two of his shots ended up in the water.

“I didn’t do anything right,” Woods said. “I didn’t hit many good shots. Consequently, I ended up with a pretty high score.”

–Field Level Media

Tiger Woods has withdrawn from the PGA Championship after shooting a 9-over-par 79 in Saturday’s third round in Tulsa, Okla.

It marked the first WD in Woods’ professional career.

Woods, 46, shot 1-under-par over the final five holes Saturday to avoid recording a score in the 80s for the third time in a major. Still, it was his worst round ever at a PGA Championship.

It was a gritty effort at the end for Woods, who started the day at 3-over 143 and finished at 12 over and stood 21 strokes out of the lead when his third round ended at Southern Hills Country Club.

Clearly struggling to make it through 18 holes on his rebuilt right leg, Woods and his team declined an on-camera interview with CBS Sports following the round. Instead, Woods and his reps told the CBS television crew that he was sore.

On Friday, Woods made the cut at a major for the second time in two tries since nearly losing his right leg 15 months ago in a devastating single-car crash in Southern California. He shot a 1-under-par 69 on Friday to sneak in under the cut line.

In the third round, he started with a par but found the water on No. 2 for a bogey. His real troubles began on the par-3 No. 6, when his tee shot landed in the water again, his shot from the drop area found the rough to the left of the green, and he hit his pitch sort of the green. After hitting a chip shot to about two feet from the cup, he putted out for a triple-bogey 6.

From there, Woods’ round unraveled on a chilly morning. He bogeyed holes 7 and 9 to leave him with a 41 on the front nine.

The bogey on the par-4 No. 9 was the first of five straight bogeys for Woods, a four-time PGA Championship winner. He won at Southern Hills in 2007, the most recent time the tournament was played at the course.

Woods never before had carded five straight bogeys at a major championship.

The bright spot of Woods’ day came on the 413-yard, par-4 15th. Woods flashed his first smile of the day when he drained a 36-foot putt for his only birdie on the round.

Woods’ worst-ever round in a major championship came in 2002, when he shot an 81 in the third round at The Open Championship at Muirfield — the same year in which he won the Masters and the U.S. Open.

He shot an 80 in the first round of the U.S. Open in 2015 at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash.

–Field Level Media