Golf:It will probably need something special, but Phil Mickelson could be just a day away from becoming world number one for the first time after producing a 66 in the third round of The Players Championship in Florida.
After making the halfway cut with only a stroke to play at three under par, the Masters champion appeared to have little chance of achieving the victory which might well take him above Tiger Woods on the rankings.
But before halfway leader Lee Westwood had even walked to the first tee on a more blustery day, Mickelson had reduced a nine-stroke gap to just two with a sparkling seven-birdie display — until, that is, he bogeyed the last.
He was up from 46th place to joint sixth, but Westwood and the other leaders still had the chance, of course, to move clear again.
Mickelson has spent 244 weeks at number two in his career, but should he lift the title at Sawgrass, Woods had to finish in the top five to stay ahead — and that looked out of reach the way he was playing.
Woods had reached six under, but finished with two bogeys and was only joint 43rd as nothing seemed to be coming easy to him in the third event of his comeback.
Mickelson’s charge began when he chipped to four feet on the long second, holed from 10 feet at the 177-yard next and then converted a 17-foot chance from the edge of the fifth green.
He hit a 152-yard iron to six feet at the seventh and on the long ninth pitched to 10 feet and made that as well for his fifth birdie.
Out in 31 he gave himself a 12-foot eagle opportunity at the 558-yard 11th. And although the putt just missed he tapped in for another birdie and added to his collection thanks to a pitch to three feet on the long 16th.
The finish was a big disappointment, however. He went long on the 18th and for once could not get up and down.
At least Woods was still around for the closing 36 holes unlike last week at Quail Hollow, where he missed the cut by an incredible eight shots. But the way he played over the opening stretch the crowd must have wondered if they were watching the same player who had won 14 majors.
From just 76 yards at the first, Woods left his pitch nearly 40 feet short and although he birdied the 532-yard second it followed a drive into the right rough and an approach into the left rough.
Having holed from 11 feet there he had to get up and down from a bunker on the next and bogeyed the fourth when he drove left this time, failed to find the green and failed to save par.
Westwood had looked in a different league to all that as he compiled opening
rounds of 67 and 65 for a 12 under par halfway total that left him one ahead of Italian Francesco Molinari, Japan’s Ryuji Imada and American Heath Slocum.
But Woods is certainly a fighter and birdies on the ninth, 11th and 15th lifted him through the field, but more trouble came at the 17th and 18th.
The scoring was low again because of the soft conditions. Former winner Fred Funk, now 53, made 66 from the cut-line of two under, while Westwood’s county colleague Oliver Wilson had a hat-trick of birdies from the fourth and with seven to go remained seven under.
South African Tim Clark, meanwhile, matched Mickelson’s front nine 31 to be 10 under and that included a 118-yard pitch-in for an eagle two on the sixth.
After yesterday’s sparkling round of 65, Graeme McDowell parred his opening five holes but dropped a shot at the sixth to move back to six under.