CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — Keegan Bradley is still adjusting to his new title as U.S. Ryder Cup captain. He still feels like a player who should be competing to win and who thinks about playing in the matches.

He certainly looked the part on Saturday at the BMW Championship, hearing occasional cheers of “USA! USA!” as he raced through windy Castle Pines for a wild round of 2-under 70 that gave him a one-stroke lead over Adam Scott.

“It’s strange to be named Ryder Cup captain and still be a full-time player,” said Bradley, at 38 the youngest U.S. captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963. “I don’t know anyone who knows how to handle this situation, so I’m doing the best I can. All I can do is keep playing my best golf and maybe play my way onto one of these teams.”

A win would make him the first captain to win on the PGA Tour since Davis Love III was 51 when he won the 2015 Wyndham Championship. It would also move Bradley to No. 11 in the world rankings.

One lap, but that still seems a long way off given the developments on Saturday.

Bradley had eight birdies and still shot just 70, a round that included three straight birdies on the front end, three straight bogeys on the back end and four birdies on his last five holes (the exception being a bogey on the par-3 16th). He was at 12-under 204.

That was true for almost everyone.

Adam Scott hit one tee shot out of bounds and one into the water after just three holes. He had to recover at the end to limit the damage to a 74, leaving him just one stroke behind.

“I felt like I made a meal out of that, and I didn’t feel like I did that much wrong — a couple drives just weren’t quite right, and a three-putt, and all of a sudden I’m kind of chasing it,” Scott said. “I’m in a good position to be one down.”

Ludvig Åberg started his day with a bloody nose at high altitude. He wiped away the blood and made a 50-foot birdie putt at the start. The super Swede went from a four-stroke deficit to a three-stroke lead after just five holes. And then he made back-to-back bogeys, teed off into the water on the par-3 11th for a double bogey and eagled three holes later. He shot 71 and was two strokes behind.

Åberg was level with his compatriot Alex Noren, who at one point trailed by six strokes, and closed with three birdies in a row, the last of which from 10 metres on the 18th green was good for a 70.

The most telling thing about this windy day in the miles-high air was Xander Schauffele. When told Friday how unusual it was to not see his or Scottie Scheffler’s name in the top 20 of the standings, Schauffele smiled and said, “Give it another day. One of us will be there.”

It turned out to be him. He started the weekend 11 shots behind. He had a 67 — despite a double bogey on his card — and enters Sunday four shots behind. So did Denver native and former U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, who had a late eagle for a 69.

Still not certain for Bradley, Scott and Noren is a trip to East Lake next week for the Tour Championship. The top 30 advance to the FedEx Cup Final with at least some chance at the $25 million prize.

All three of those were outside the top 40 heading into Castle Pines. Bradley was the last man to make the 50-man field for the BMW Championship. A win would put him at No. 4. But if he falls too far behind, he could fall out of the top 30.

Scott and Noren are also not out of the danger zone yet.

They are all thinking more about the trophies at stake on Sunday: one from the BMW Championship and one from the Western Golf Association, which has organized this elite tournament for 125 years.

Scott had a three-stroke lead to start the third round and it quickly disappeared. He hit his first tee shot far to the right, over threes and past the white out-of-bounds posts. He had to struggle for a bogey.

Two holes later, he took an aggressive line off the tee and was a few feet further than he should have been. He saw the ball splat off the tee in the pond and a three-putt from 20 feet added a double bogey. A bogey from the bunker on the next hole followed and the Australian faltered.

He birdied the 11th hole and hit another out-of-bounds tee shot on the par-5 14th, where he had to make another bogey. All that and he was still just one stroke behind and in the last group.

The 48 players — Hideki Matsuyama withdrew on Friday, Robert MacIntyre on Saturday, both with lower back problems — combined for 22 double bogeys, two triple bogeys and one quadruple bogey in fits that never really abated.