Kisner maintains HSBC Champions lead as D. Johnson, Spieth charge

Kevin Kisner is 18 holes away from his first PGA Tour win, carrying a one-shot lead into Sunday at the WGC-HSBC Champions.

Kisner, who shot 2-under 70 at Sheshan International in his third round on Saturday, leads by one over 2013 champion Dustin Johnson, Li Haotong and Russell Knox, who has one hole to go after play was suspended in Shanghai due to darkness.

A PGA Tour record three-time playoff loser in 2015, Kisner made two birdies in the final four holes to maintain his small edge at 16-under 200.

Johnson, who didn’t defend his title in 2014 while on a personal leave of absence from competitive golf, shot a bogey-free 65.

Li, who shot his second 66 of the week on Saturday, hopes to become the first Chinese-born player to win a PGA Tour event. At a minimum, he’s in great position to post the greatest-ever finish by a Chinese player, toppling Wen-Chong Liang’s T-8 finish in the 2010 PGA Championship.

Li said he hopes to notch a top-10 finish, but asked if he could win, he candidly said, “I don’t think so.”

Jordan Spieth also surged into contention on Saturday. After a pedestrian second-round 72 in which he admitted he had trouble focusing, Spieth cruised in Round 3 to a bogey-free, 9-under 63 that has him just three back of Kisner. The world No. 2 said a good start helped him trust a change he’s making in his game.

“When I feel like I have a shot that I can trust, you’re a lot more confident over the ball,” he said. “You see the shots coming together and then all of a sudden you’re able to make more putts. That’s just how it works with golf. It’s just a momentum game, a confidence game and we’d certainly built a lot today.”

The round could have been even better, with Spieth missing four putts inside 10 feet, but Spieth won’t lament a great score.

“I’m not going to complain about the round,” he said, “but I felt like the way I played could have been 10 or 11 (under) for sure.”

Kisner said his theory is that a guy like Spieth — maybe even Spieth — will make a lot of birdies in trying to chase him down on Sunday, so Kisner’s plan is to continue to be aggressive and see where that takes him.

“Just keep making birdies is it what I’m going to try to do,” he said. “I’ll look up on about 15 and 16 and see if I need to change my game plan.”

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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