Saturday, August 29, 2009

Woods and Harrington make moves

THIRD ROUND LEADERBOARD:
-9 P Goydos, S Marino (US) -7 F Jacobson (Swe), W Simpson (US) -6 S Stricker (US) Selected others: -4 T Woods (US), P Harrington (Ire), I Poulter (Eng) -3 G Owen (Eng), E Els (SA) -2 YE Yang (Kor) +1 J Rose (Eng) +2 L Donald (Eng), S Garcia (Spa) +6 P Mickelson (US)


Tiger Woods
Woods launched his challenge with a third-round 68 in New Jersey

Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington both climbed into contention after the third round of The Barclays at Liberty National in New Jersey.

Both players fired four-under 67s to reach four under but were still five off the pace of Americans Paul Goydos and Steve Marino in the play-off event.

Ian Poulter (70) also reached four under as fellow Englishman Greg Owen shot 65 to climb to three under.

Ernie Els took 70 for three under with USPGA champion YE Yang at two under.

Goydos and Marino have carded identical rounds of 65, 71, 68 and go into the last day with a two-lead over Sweden's Fredrik Jacobson (68) and overnight leader Webb Simpson, who shot a one-over 72.

Marino lost in a play-off at Colonial and was tied for the 36-hole lead with Tom Watson at the Open Championship, while Goydos's last win came at the Sony Open two years ago.

American world number six Steve Stricker was on his own at six under after a 68 with countryman Heath Slocum five under.

Woods compiled five birdies and a lone bogey at the par-four 10th but struggled to read the greens on the waterside course in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.

"These greens are just so different," said the world number one, who had to ask for help from caddie Steve Williams.

"Usually I read greens on my own and feel very comfortable with my reads.

"It's not too often that half your putts are double-breaking putts. You're hitting in there 10 feet, 12 feet, 15 feet and they are double-breaking putts all the time."

Harrington fired five birdies in six holes after the turn to ignite his challenge, while Owen hit six birdies in the best round of the day on a course soft from rain and playing 355 yards shorter with tees moved forward.

The tournament is the first leg of the four-event FedEx Cup play-off series.

Woods, who has won five times this season but was pipped by Yang to the USPGA title, leads the FedEx Cup standings with points accrued during the regular season counting for the first three play-off events.

The top 100 players on the points list after the Barclays will compete at the Deutsche Bank Championship (4-7 Sept), with 70 going on to the BMW Championship (10-13 Sept) and the final 30 contesting the Tour Championship (24-27 Sept).

No comments: