OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. — Dustin John­son says his game feels sim­i­lar to last week when he had the eas­i­est of his 23 career victories.

It just doesn’t look that way at the BMW Championship.

Every par at Olympia Fields is hard work, and John­son played the final 13 holes Sat­ur­day with noth­ing worse than that. It’s what car­ried him to a 1‑under 69 and a share of the lead with Hide­ki Mat­suya­ma, leav­ing them as the only play­ers under par going into the final round.

“I feel like it’s fair­ly sim­i­lar, just obvi­ous­ly these con­di­tions and the greens are a lot more dif­fi­cult,” he said. “This is pret­ty much a major cham­pi­onship venue, and the con­di­tions, the way it’s set up, it’s play­ing just like a major.”

Mat­suya­ma, who had a three-shot lead ear­ly when he holed a bunker shot for eagle at the start and stuffed a wedge in tight for birdie on No. 4, fell back with a string of bogeys and held it togeth­er for a 69.

“Great start and then just had to hang on,” Mat­suya­ma said. “Just tried to do what I could to stay in, and I was hap­py with how it went.”

John­son and Maruya­ma were at 1‑under 209. Every­one else was over par going into the final round.

Sun­day is one last chance for some play­ers to be among the top 30 who advance to the FedEx Cup finale, and one last round for oth­ers — like Tiger Woods — to pre­pare for the U.S. Open on a course that plays every bit as tough.

Patrick Cant­lay only hit five fair­ways and didn’t make a birdie as he tum­bled out of a tie for the lead with a round with a 75 that left him five shots behind and might cost him a spot in the Tour Championship.

Rory McIl­roy had to play left-hand­ed to escape the base of a tree in start­ing the back nine with a bogey, and he fin­ished with a shot he thought was going to be long, came up 70 feet short and led to a three-putt bogey for a 73. He still was only three shots back assum­ing he plays.

McIl­roy said after the round his wife is expect­ing their first child, news they had shared with fam­i­ly and friends but was revealed dur­ing the NBC broad­cast. He said his cad­die and best friend, Har­ry Dia­mond, has kept a phone in his pock­et to not miss a call. And if it’s time, he said, “I’m out of here.”

Jon Rahm matched the low round of the day at 66 that could have eas­i­ly been one shot bet­ter if not for a blun­der that even he couldn’t believe. He for­got to set a mark­er down on the green before pick­ing up his golf ball on No. 5, freez­ing in his tracks when he real­ized what happened.

“I was think­ing of some­body else or some­thing else … and yeah, I just picked up the ball with­out mark­ing it, sim­ple as that,” Rahm said after a round that left him only three behind. “I can’t real­ly give you an expla­na­tion. It’s one of those things that hap­pen in golf. Nev­er thought it would in my pro­fes­sion­al career, but here we are.”

A week ago at The North­ern Trust on a rain-soft­ened course with lit­tle wind, John­son was at 22-under par through three rounds and had a five-shot lead. That felt easy. This does not.

Joaquin Nie­mann had a 68 and was part of the group at 1‑over 211 that includ­ed Adam Scott (70) and Macken­zie Hugh­es (69). Anoth­er shot back were the likes of Rahm, Bub­ba Wat­son, Bren­don Todd and Kevin Kisner, who had 15 pars, two birdie and bogey for his round of 70.

Rounds like that go a long way at Olympia Fields, the for­mer U.S. Open course play­ing like one with its thick rough and rock-hard greens and enough wind to make the fair­ways look tighter than they are.

“I’ve played good and bad this week, and I’ve had basi­cal­ly the same score every day,” Scott said, whose superb bunker play kept him close. “I saw today, though, that if I hit it well, there’s a chance to make a few putts. One of this lead­ing group will shoot 4 under tomor­row, 4 or 5 under I’m sure.”

Woods, mean­while, had a rea­son­able start to his round and wasn’t los­ing much ground until he lost a tee shot into the water right of the 17th fair­way and then smoth­ered a fair­way met­al to the left. He walked across a cart path smack­ing the club off the con­crete and twice looked like he want­ed to break it. He missed a short putt for triple bogey and shot 72.

Woods has yet to break par this week. One more round like that and it will be the first time in 10 years — the Bridge­stone Invi­ta­tion­al at Fire­stone — that he had all four rounds over par. He need­ed some­thing around fourth to advance to the Tour Cham­pi­onship for the first time since 2018.

Mat­suya­ma is try­ing to end three years with­out a vic­to­ry. John­son is try­ing to win for the sec­ond time in sev­en days, along with posi­tion­ing him­self to be the top seed at the Tour Cham­pi­onship, which would allow him to start the tour­na­ment with a two-shot lead under the stag­gered start.

For play­ers like Nie­mann, Hugh­es and Scott, they are sim­ply try­ing to get to East Lake in Atlanta. All of them are one round away on a golf course where small mis­takes can lead to bogeys or worse on just about every hole.