There was a moment on Saturday when Patrick Rodgers, a rising junior at Stanford, was 7-under par for the day, 13-under for the tournament and alone atop the leader board. This wasn’t a collegiate event, nor was it one of the many amateur competitions that make up the informal summer series.

No, this was the John Deere Classic, an event on the PGA Tour that features some of the top male professional golfers in the world — and Patrick Rodgers.

Rodgers is no stranger to leader boards. He has won at the collegiate level (once in 2011, twice in 2012 and once in 2013), and on the summer amateur tour (2011 Porter Cup). He has also represented the U.S. on the Walker and Palmer Cup teams, which are matches between the USA and Great Britain & Ireland/Europe (respectively). He is also no stranger to the TPC Deere Run course, having played another tournament there:

“I played a tournament here when I was 13, a Plantations Junior Golf tournament, shot a couple 77’s and finished like 10th or something,” Rodgers said on Friday. “Obviously I played a little shorter tees back when I was 13, and so I was kind of looking back and saying, whoa, there is a tee box back here.”

Until this week, the Avon, Ind., native had yet to survive a 36-hole cut in a top-shelf professional event in three tries. He had played the John Deere and the Traveler’s Championship on Tour in 2012, as well as last year’s Children’s Hospital Invitational on the Web.com Tour. That all changed on Friday, July 12, when the young man followed up an opening six-birdie 67 with a four-birdie 69 to make the cut by three comfortable shots.

“Kind of got a mental hurdle off my back,” is how Rodgers described the feeling of knowing he’d be around in an official capacity for the weekend.

Hot out of the gate with birdies on his first two holes on Saturday, Rodgers stood 7-under through 12 holes and stood in the 13th fairway as the official tournament leader. Despite the temptation of being star-struck with his newfound stature, Rodgers maintained a realistic attitude.

“Yeah, I saw that but I knew the leaders were a couple of holes behind me,” Rodgers said. “The course is there for the taking so they are going to make some birdies.”

Rodgers cooled off, though, making five consecutive pars before a drive into a fairway bunker on the closing hole led to his only bogey of the round. He was, in his words, a “little disappointed with the finish but it’s a new experience I’ll learn from, and I’ll be better for it tomorrow.”

Rodgers is no shrinking violet. The likely selection for the 2013 U.S. Walker Cup side has birdied nearly one-third of his holes this week (17 of 54), demonstrating that he knows how to be opportunistic. Rodgers will enter Sunday’s final round in a tie for 12^th place.

He has an ideal round four pairing with Jim Herman, a journeyman pro without the entourage of an A-List player. Rodgers will once again have the opportunity to go for broke at TPC Deere Run and prove that one day, perhaps tomorrow, he will be one to be reckoned with on the PGA Tour.