Alex Noren credited the "perspective" gained from a long injury absence as he put himself in contention at the 2025 US PGA Championship.
Noren, only just back from a serious hamstring injury, produced a five-under-par third round of 66 at Quail Hollow thanks to four birdies in the last five holes.
That put him three shots behind leader Scottie Scheffler, his partner in Sunday's final group as the Swedish veteran seeks a first Major Championship and what would be only his second top-ten finish in 40 such events.
"It feels good," said the 42-year-old. "I got it together and the putting was better today, then finally hit some really good ones on 17 and 18 and it paid off."
Noren avoided a full tear of the tendon in his hamstring, which would have necessitated surgery and an even longer lay-off, and said: "It's a bad injury but you can still live a quite normal life because you have two other tendons that support it.
"But I couldn't swing a club. I couldn't jump or run. I could walk kind of slowly and live a normal life. I could coach my kids. Spent a lot of time with the family. It's been quite nice.
"I got some good perspective, spending that much time kind of in the middle of a career - hopefully I'll play a lot longer.
"To kind of have that time to see the family a lot, it's been nice. You know how it is. You guys travel a lot. So it gave some good perspective, but then I obviously wish I would have played more golf leading up to this than I have.
"It was a lot easier to have this break when I'm 42 than when I was younger. As soon as I kind of could play, I thought I was in sort of the same form I was in before I got injured.
"But I'm still extremely - not surprised, but I'm fortunate to be in this position this early."
