Woods waits as field backs up at TPC
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Even with thousands of dollars at stake, with world ranking points on the line, with seemingly so much for which to play, professional golfers are sometimes prone to mailing it in.
It happens all the time. The swing is not in sync. The putts are not dropping. The weather is lousy. Thoughts of dinner, family, friends, getting out of town … all those thoughts creep into the mind, making it easy to rationalize anything but bearing down and fighting through the inevitable negatives of the game.
How often have you seen Tiger Woods do that?
Almost never.
By just about any measure, Woods should have no chance Sunday of winning The Players Championship. He has missed fairways left and right, has faced numerous ups and downs, hasn't holed a high number of putts. Woods does not rank among the top 20 in any statistical category, as flawed as they sometimes may be.
On Saturday at the TPC Sawgrass, Woods had to play a shot left-handed from behind a tree. He stood on a railroad tie to hit a chip shot. This came a day after Tiger looked like a contortionist several times, such were the number of awkward lies he encountered during the second round.
And yet, here is Woods, set to play in the final twosome with leader Alex Cejka, a veteran who has never won on the PGA Tour.
Woods is tied for second through three rounds, most of his "charge" occurring late Saturday afternoon as he relaxed aboard his yacht parked on the intracoastal waterway.
All this after willing his way around the golf course when it seemed that every hole was an adventure.
"That's how you're supposed to play, isn't it? I always play that way," Woods said after shooting a 2-under-par 70.
For the first time since he won The Players in 2001, Woods has shot three straight rounds under par here. Given the various places he has visited through 54 holes on the Stadium Course, that had hardly seemed likely.
But Woods somehow went from a tie for 22nd to a tie for second, 5 shots behind Cejka -- exactly the position he started from six weeks ago at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where Woods overtook Sean O'Hair for his first victory since returning from ACL surgery.
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"It's going to be tough," said Cejka, whose only previous pairing with Woods was during the final round of the 1996 British Open -- when Woods was still an amateur. "He's the best player, and I know it's going to be a challenge for me. … There will be more spectators, a little more pressure."
Well, for the understated Cejka, that may be the ultimate understatement.
Woods was tied for ninth, 4 shots back when his round ended. About 90 minutes later, he was 5 behind but in the final group after starting Saturday in the 13th group from the end.
"Just grinding it out," Woods said. "This is basically our fifth major, and that's how it's playing. It's playing just like a major championship. It's fast. It's hard. It's dry. And you just have to keep plodding along."
Woods joked that he was glad he was wearing spikes while walking on the 17th green. That's how slick the putting surface was at the island hole, where he coaxed in a 9-foot birdie putt to get to 6 under par for the tournament.
A hole later, after missing his drive to the right, punching his approach shot with a 6-iron from under a tree onto the fairway and through the green to the very edge of the water, Woods stood on the railing and chipped close enough to save par.
The scorecard doesn't really tell the story; 35-35 looks rather ordinary.
But Woods made a 47-footer for birdie at the sixth, failed to birdie the par-5 ninth after a poor drive, had to play a left-handed shot at the par-5 11th (which led to a bogey), then stiffed his approach at the 12th and converted for a birdie.
He was kicking himself for missing the green at the 15th (which also led to a bogey) but rebounded to birdie two of the last three.
And it didn't take him long to realize that modest success on this day would vault him up the leaderboard.
"It dried out," Woods said. "These greens got really dry and really crusty. The shots just weren't holding. Before, they were fast, but they weren't as springy as this. They're not putting a whole lot of water on these greens.
"It didn't start drying out until about [No.] 9. The leaders I'm sure have been playing with it all day."
Of the top 21 players when the third round began, only Retief Goosen and Jonathan Byrd broke par. Cejka managed even-par 72, while Goosen and Byrd are tied with Ben Crane (72), Henrik Stenson (73) and Ian Poulter (75) in a tie for second, along with Woods.
Still, Woods admitted he did not expect to move so close to the lead. Not when there were 21 players in front of him. And not when his game was far from dialed-in.
"There were so many guys at 7 under par," he said. "You figured some of the guys would shoot 3- or 4 under par today. But it's just not happening out there."
And it's not expected to get easier.
"A bit like that cart path," said Goosen, the two-time U.S. Open champion, when asked what he expected the course conditions to be like Sunday. "So we'll practice our chipping on a cart path tonight."
Woods was not going to practice anything Saturday night. Rest was more important. And for a guy who has been the subject of so much consternation over his game, he remains on a remarkable run.
A victory is within reach, but even if he falls short short of that, Woods has the opportunity to earn his 15th consecutive top-10 finish in a stroke-play event on the PGA Tour, with a 13th top-5 in that span.
That would be a good career for many players, but with the expectations heaped on Woods, there remain concerns about his driver, his swing, his putting … you name it.
Of course, we're talking about the game's No. 1 player, the guy with 66 PGA Tour wins and 14 major championships. Having it all come together, to him, could be just one shot, one hole away.
"If I have an understanding of my misses, I can figure it out," Woods said. "Sometimes you don't, and it's a little frustrating. But this week I have an idea of what I need to do, it's just a matter of doing it when I do it properly."
Or, as was the case Saturday, he can sit back and wait for others to make the mistakes.
Bob Harig covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.
