Jake Knapp signed for a bogey-free, 12-under 59 on Thursday to take the lead at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, his low 18-hole score on Tour in his 116th round. He holds the 18-hole lead/co-lead for the first time.

“I knew obviously I had it going really early, but at the same time, that can happen and then it can kind of fizzle out pretty quick. I thought I did a good job of just trying to focus on shot by shot and not letting what happened or what could happen affect anything,” said Knapp.

“Then once I made the long putt on 15, it was like, okay, now this is kind of here. But at the same time, didn’t let it affect the game plan or anything like that. Tried to hit an aggressive shot into 16, 17 and 18, and just tried to — knew I was hitting it well, so tried to just birdie everything today.”

Knapp’s 59 was the first sub-60 score on the PGA Tour in 238 days since the 2024 John Deere Classic (Hayden Springer/59/R1) and the 15th sub-60 score in the Tour’s history.

The 30-year-old American seeks his second win on Tour in his 35th start having last won at the 2024 Mexico Open at VidantaWorld.

In seven previous starts this season, he has two top-25 finishes and sits No. 61 in the FedExCup standings. His best tournament finish in 2025 was T17 at The Genesis Invitational.

“I think I’ve been trending pretty well, honestly, over the last — just since the start of the season. It’s not like I’ve played really well and then really bad. I think it’s just slowly gotten better since the start of the year,” added Knapp.

“Played okay at Genesis. Last week had a tough day on Friday and then came back on the weekend and struck the ball great. I think I was first in approach on Sunday. I was pretty aware coming into this week that my game is trending in the right way.

“At the same time, it’s just golf. It’s one of those things where you can be hitting it really well and not scoring or you can be hitting it bad and scoring. Just doing my best right now to get the scores down a little bit, but overall feel like I’ve been playing a lot better.”

Fellow Americans Daniel Berger and Russell Henley are tied in second place at 8-under alongside Finland’s Sami Välimäki after carding bogey-free 63s.

American amateur Luke Clanton lies in T28 after shooting 4-under 67. If Clanton makes the cut this week, he will earn PGA Tour membership via the PGA Tour University Accelerated. Clanton entered the week with 19 points in the program and a made cut would earn him the one point needed to reach the 20-point threshold for membership, which he could accept in June 2025.

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The top 10 FedExCup points earners through the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches will earn spots in the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard via the Aon Next 10.

The top 5 FedExCup points earners in the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld and Cognizant Classic will earn spots in the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard via the Aon Swing 5.

The Aon Next 10 and Aon Swing 5 are eligibility pathways for players, not already qualified, to play their way into Signature Events via the FedExCup standings.

Related: Sub-60 rounds on the PGA Tour

There have been 15 sub-60 rounds in PGA Tour history.