Bradley shot 60 even with consecutive bogeys midway through his round Thursday. After his second bogey, at No. 1 to start his second nine, he was 7 under his last eight holes.

The 60 matched the lowest round ever at the Nelson.

Arron Oberholser shot 60 in the second round of the 2006 tournament, but that was on the Cottonwood Valley course across the street that used to be used the first two rounds. Sam Snead shot 60 in the 1957 tournament at Glen Lakes Country Club.

Tiger Woods, Justin Leonard and Charlie Rymer shot 61s at TPC Four Seasons.

File photo of Brooke Henderson, of Smiths Falls, Ont., was runner-up after a final-round even-par 72. Photo by Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press.

The victory was Richdale’s first CN Canadians Women’s Tour victory and earns her an exemption into the 2013 CN Women’s Canadian Open at Royal Mayfair Golf Club in Edmonton, August 19-25.

“This is pretty awesome, that was my main reason to come out and play at these CN Events was to get that

exemption,” said Richdale, who now heads to play on the LPGA Symetra Tour this week. “I’m really excited to be able to go play in Edmonton because I used to live in St. Albert, so it will be fun to go back there.”

Brooke Henderson, 15, of Smiths Falls, Ont., was runner-up after a final-round even-par 72. Henderson birdied two of her final five holes to finish at 2-under for the tournament and earn low amateur honours.

Augusta James of Bath, Ont., finished in a tie for third with amateur Simin Feng of Windermere, Fla., at 1-under 143. South Korea’s Soobin Kim was fifth at 144.

While the other four award recipients will be watching the Byron Nelson Championship, the 14-year-old Guan — already the youngest player to make a cut on the PGA Tour — is playing in the tournament.

This is the second PGA Tour event for the eighth-grader from China since making the cut last month at the Masters. He also made the cut at New Orleans, where he first spoke with Nelson officials about playing this week.

“Always a challenge, every tournament, because this is another big event … this is only my third start and everything is still new to me,” Guan said Wednesday, a day before the Nelson’s opening round. “I have to play my best and make some good score.”

The youngster’s impressive performance at Augusta has led to invitations to play in other events. He hopes to again be playing in the weekend rounds.

“For this week, I want to enjoy the experience, great experience here,” Guan said. “And hope to, yeah, make the cut. And if I make the cut hope to play better and better.”

Guan Tianlang of China walks off the tee box on the third hole during the third round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans at TPC Louisiana on April 27, 2013 in Avondale, Louisiana. Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images

There are two sponsor exemptions playing in this year’s Nelson: Guan and 19-year-old Jordan Spieth, the Dallas native playing at TPC Four Seasons for the third time.

Spieth is playing as a pro this time, having made six of nine cuts and already won nearly US$700,000 this season. As an amateur at the Nelson, he tied for 16th as a 16-year-old in 2010, then played on the same day as his high school graduation two years ago when he tied for 32nd. He played one season at the University of Texas before turning pro.

“I think it’s incredible what he’s doing,” Spieth said about Guan. “He played beyond his years, the composure. I watched him at the Masters and honestly going into it, I thought it would be a little too much for him, and he surprised the whole world. Then to follow it up with a made cut in his second event.”

The two had what Spieth described as “small talk” when they were on the range next to each other in New Orleans.

This week in the area Spieth calls home, they were near each other on the putting green.

“It was just me and my bag, and he he’s got a whole group of people,” said Spieth, a past recipient of the Byron Nelson International Junior Golf Awards based on golf performance, academic success and community involvement.

Guan has handled the pressure of playing PGA events.

He said he prepared for the Masters for a long time, and that experience helped him in New Orleans and should help him this week.

“Just a long way to go,” Guan said, adding that he has learned a lot in just two starts. “Yeah, a little used to getting to know what to do on the tour. Best players in the world, what are they doing, what are they playing.”

The same goes for Dufner when things aren’t going as well, such as this season.

“I don’t show it, but obviously it’s going on inside. I played a lot of rounds this year with frustration and anger on my mind,” Dufner said Wednesday. “I’ve got a good way of hiding the good and the bad. But there has been more anger and frustration this year than there was last year, for sure.”

His victory at the Nelson, after which there was no overwhelming outburst of excitement, capped a four-week span in which Dufner got his first two PGA Tour victories and also got married. He followed that with a runner-up finish at Colonial, a fourth-place finish at the U.S. Open and made 21 consecutive cuts to end the season.

“I don’t reflect on it very much at all,” he said. “Nothing is staying the same in golf. You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. At this moment in time, I’m a little bit worse than I was last year.”

Heading into Thursday’s opening round of the Nelson, Dufner hasn’t had a top-10 finish this season and has already missed two cuts — twice as many as last year. He is coming off his worst round of the season, a closing 80 at The Players Championship with three double bogeys while never hitting a ball in the water.

The last person to win consecutive Nelsons was Tom Watson, who won three in a row from 1978-80. The only other back-to-back winners are Jack Nicklaus and Sam Snead.

Jason Dufner of the USA plays his second shot on the second hole during round three of THE PLAYERS Championship at THE PLAYERS Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass on May 11, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images.

A week after The Players, the Nelson field includes only six of the top 25 players in the world ranking, led by No. 7 Louis Oosthuizen — who missed the cut last year in his only previous Nelson appearance.

“I would rather come in a bit more in form than coming in top-ranked player [in the field],” said Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open champ who tied for 19th last week but hasn’t made consecutive cuts in his seven PGA Tour events this year.

While Dufner might not reflect on that impressive stretch last season, the TPC Four Seasons conjures good memories and those couple of months did give him a good perspective on his potential level of play.

His return to North Texas also could revive the viral sensation of “Dufnering.”

When Dufner made an appearance two months ago to promote the Nelson, there was a picture tweeted of the sleepy-eyed golfer sitting on the floor and slouched against a wall in a school classroom with kids.

Fellow golfers and others mimicked the shot with their own poses posted on Twitter. The hashtag #dufnering emerged, and there are still people posting their own version.

“I was just sitting and somebody decided to take a picture and put it on the Internet. … The guys on Tour had a go at it with me and then it went viral,” he said. “I didn’t take it too seriously. Like most things in my life, I don’t take things too seriously. But it’s been a good response and I think people have had a kick out of it.”

Dufner said it’s “extremely weird” to him to see people having their dogs and cats “Dufnering,” but said the response has been good. He has seen many of the posts, and there is one that stands out.

“One guy did it up in, I think it was a C-130, where they transport tanks for the military. They had the back hatch down and he was sitting on the edge and they were up 20, 30,000 feet in the air,” he said. “That was a unique spot to do it.’

In the days since Woods won The Players Championship, the dispute has shifted from players to volunteer marshals.

Sergio Garcia of Spain reacts on the 16th green during the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship at THE PLAYERS Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass on May 12, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images.

It started Saturday in the third round when Woods was deep in the trees, some 50 yards to the left of Garcia in the fairway. Woods pulled a 5-wood from his bag to play a high-risk shot through a gap in the trees, and the crowd cheered his decision — right about the time Garcia was playing his shot.

Woods said marshals told him Garcia had already played his shot.

Asked about the poor shot he hit that led to bogey, Garcia said that Woods should have known the Spaniard was about to hit, and he suggested that Woods might have instigated the disruptive cheer. Woods said later Saturday that Garcia didn’t have all the facts.

“The marshals, they told me already hit, so I pulled a club and was getting ready to play my shot,” Woods said.

None of this had any bearing on the outcome, and there were no rules violation.

But it became testy when Sports Illustrated quoted two marshals as saying they told Woods no such thing. One of them was John North, the head marshal for that section of the golf course. He told the magazine, “Nothing was said to us and we certainly said nothing to him. I was disappointed to hear him make those remarks. We’re there to help the players and enhance the experience of the fans. He was saying what was good for him. It lacked character.”

Tiger Woods of the USA acknowledges the gallery after finishing on the 18th green during the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship at THE PLAYERS Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass on May 12, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images.

The Florida Times-Union, however, quoted two marshals as saying there was communication between Woods and volunteers.

“It is not true and definitely unfair to Tiger,” said Brian Nedrich, a marshal at the second hole. “That’s because I was the one Tiger heard say that Sergio hit.”

Nedrich said he was about 10 yards from Woods, and while he could barely see Garcia, he said he got a glimpse of him swinging and saw the ball in the air. He said when the crowd began to stir around Woods, another marshal, Lance Paczkowski, tried to quiet them by saying, “The other player hasn’t hit yet.”

“That’s when I yelled back at Lance, ‘No … he’s already hit,” Nedrich told the newspaper. “Tiger had already taken his club, but we did tell him that Sergio had hit.”

It became a particularly sensitive issue to the Woods camp because several websites had the word “lied” in its headlines.

Sports Illustrated posted an update on its website Wednesday that it had a follow-up interview with North, who said with an earpiece in one ear, it was possible that other officials had an exchange with Woods that he didn’t hear. North said his statement about “lacking character” was based on his understanding that no marshal had said anything to Woods.

Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, said in a statement that the comments from the marshals in the Florida Times-Union story “definitively show that Tiger was telling the truth about being told Sergio had hit. I hope this demonstrates to some reporters the importance of accuracy and not jumping to misplaced conclusions.”

There were many raised eyebrows when in the aftermath of his dramatic collapse at the Players Championship, Garcia declared: “I’m not the bad guy here – I’m the victim.”

But in the Woods camp, the feeling was that they had heard it all before and that he was blaming the petty squabble he had with the world No. 1 for a defeat ultimately caused by a quadruple bogey on the penultimate hole.

John Cook, 55, the former professional who finished runner-up in two majors, is in no doubt about what is holding back Garcia. “Until he accepts the fact that he alone is the guy who can change things, not the golfing gods, then he’s going to end up every week saying the same thing – ’I’m the victim’, ’why me?”, said Woods’s regular practice partner. “Sergio’s got to get over that and accept that as he’s a really good golfer he needs to win big championships. But until he changes his whole persona and attitude he’s not going to win the really big events.”

While Woods was not without fault in the incident during Saturday’s third round – which featured the Tiger fans screaming on Garcia’s backswing as their hero pulled out a five wood in the trees – the Spaniard took his complaint way too far. And his lament at the end of the tournament – after he had hit two balls into water on the 17th when level with Woods – was embarrassing.

Garcia heads to Wentworth for next week’s BMW PGA Championship looking for his first win of the year. And while it is unfair to compare anyone with Woods in this form, never before has he completed his four-timer at this stage of the calendar and all roads now lead to Merion for next month’s US Open.

Sergio Garcia, of Spain, left, shakes hands with Tiger Woods at the conclusion of the third round of The Players championship golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass, Sunday, May 12, 2013, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Play was suspended Saturday due to darkness. Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP Photo.

All that is missing from this resurrection of an icon is the major. Sunday, June 16 is the fifth anniversary since his last major triumph. That is the date of this year’s final day of the US Open. That stat would obviously resonate, but for now golf can just drop its jaw at Woods’s continued rewriting of the record books. Sawgrass was his 300th event on the PGA Tour. He has won 78 of them, finished in the top three 125 times and the top 25 240 times. The last occasion he won four events before June 1 was in 2001 – and he went on to win the next four majors. Yet, perhaps the most foreboding numbers of all for his rivals were his putting stats at Sawgrass. He was only 38th on the strokes-gained-on-the-greens charts. At his last two wins, he was first and second respectively. The point is, Woods won his first Players title in 12 years by dint of his ball-striking.

The three-year overhaul of his swing under Sean Foley is all but complete. He can move it either way at will, as he showed with two beautifully controlled draws down the 18th.

Woods will play at the Memorial at the end of the month before the season’s second major in Philadelphia in five weeks. He will also make a reconnaissance mission to Merion as he has yet to visit the revered layout.

Perhaps there is a little hope for the rest to cling on to.

Singh announced this week that he was suing the Tour over its treatment of him after he told Sports Illustrated in January that he was a happy consumer of deer antler velvet, a supplement that claims “natural” performance-enhancement capabilities and whose target market is apparently gullible people who don’t know how to use Google.

The Tour in February suspended the former world No. 1 and allowed his appeal, then later dropped the suspension upon “learning new information” about the supplement and said all was well. Except it wasn’t well at all with Singh. According to the lawsuit filed in a New York court, the Tour “exposed Singh, one of the PGA Tour’s most respected and hardest-working golfers, to public humiliation and ridicule for months” with its “baseless” suspension. The lawsuit also takes issue with what it says was an unprecedented decision to hold Singh’s earnings this season in escrow pending the appeal and charges that, as a result of the controversy, “Singh struggled to keep his focus and play at the level that has made him one of golf’s all-time greats.” Overall, it says the Tour “breached its duty of care owed to Singh.” The lawsuit, the allegations of which have not been proven in court, says the amount of damages owed will be determined at trial.

It is fascinating reading, and the subtext of the 18-page document is clear: Singh feels the Tour hung him out like a pushed drive in a slice wind.

The courts will sort out the legal merits of his case, but at the least he has a solid justification for hurt feelings. He charges that the Tour should have presumed his innocence when the SI article was published, rather than force Singh to clear his name. (In fairness, his contribution to the article, where he said he was a happy deer-antler velvet user, and he was “looking forward to some change in my body,” sounded like a guy looking for an edge — which runs against the spirit of a sport that expects you to call a penalty on yourself if a bee farts on your ball and moves it a millimetre.)

Vijay Singh (L) of Fiji talks to Robert Allenby of Australia during a practice round for THE PLAYERS Championship at THE PLAYERS Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass on May 8, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images.

What’s funny about the suit is that it comprehensively makes the case that the purveyors of deer antler velvet, which in the Singh case was a company that sells it in a spray form, are selling nothing more than bunkum with a side of hokum. This is no surprise, as the product, which is literally extracted from the fuzz on deer antlers, claims all kinds of fanciful benefits, from muscle growth to cancer-fighting properties. There is a glaring lack of evidence of such effects on the promotional sites, however, save for the assertion that it has been “used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years.” It also throws in some fancy-sounding terms, such as how the spray is transmitted via “sub-microscopic liposomal spheres.” Them’s are doctorin’ words!

It takes about two minutes of Internet research to determine that the claims of deer-antler benefits aren’t valid. The scientific literature repeatedly shows that subjects who took supplements for 10 weeks had no better strength or aerobic capabilities than those who took placebos.

Singh, it would seem, didn’t find any of this out until after he had been suspended, and his lawsuit says the Tour should have looked into it before it dropped the hammer on him. It goes on to say that the supposed natural growth hormone in the spray is in fact biologically inactive, and that it has an exceedingly low concentration. (It is at .00006 the strength of the level at which the hormone occurs in a drug used to treat childhood growth problems.)

Since the spray was basically useless, the lawsuit says, the Tour “knew or should have known all relevant facts before wrongfully accusing Singh” of violating its anti-doping policy. Instead, it appears the Tour learned of the spray’s ineffectiveness during the appeal process, and then rescinded the suspension.

That probably would have been the end of it for most golfers, but Singh is a unique case. Suspended indefinitely by the Asian tour in 1985 — when he was 22 years old — for altering a scorecard at an Indonesian tournament, shaving off a stroke that allowed him to make the cut, the incident has caused him to always carry a bit of a chip on his shoulder. As John Garrity wrote in Sports Illustrated more than a decade ago, “the cloud of Jakarta hangs over Singh.” It probably doesn’t help that, while Singh felt he was guilty until proven innocent, Woods was given the kid-glove treatment for his rules transgression at the Masters last month.

It will be interesting to see how long the legal match play lasts. Will the Tour want to defend itself by going on the offensive against one of its high-profile stars? Whatever the case, Singh’s colleagues should know one thing: if they call him on a rules violation, they better have really solid proof. He remains fiercely protective of his reputation, even if he is easily fooled by a peddler of woo.

Woods ended a weekend of testy words with Garcia by doing what he does best — closing out tournaments, even if he let this one turn into a tense duel over the final hour at the TPC Sawgrass. Tied with Garcia with two holes to play, Woods won by finding land on the last two holes for par to close with a 2-under 70.

If only it were that simple for the Spaniard.

Garcia was standing on the 17th tee shot, staring across the water to an island as Woods made his par. He took aim at the flag with his wedge and hung his head when he saw the ball splash down short of the green. Then, Garcia hit another one in the water on his way to a quadruple-bogey 7. He completed his stunning collapse by hitting his tee shot into the water on the 18th and making double bogey.

Woods was in the scoring trailer when he watched on TV as Swedish rookie David Lingmerth missed a long birdie putt that would have forced a playoff. It raced by the cup, and Lingmerth three-putted for bogey.

With a win at the Players Championship on Sunday, Tiger Woods has now won in his 100th, 200th and 300th career starts on the PGA Tour.

Tiger Woods had the last word against Sergio Garcia by winning The Players Championship on Sunday.

Woods ended a weekend of testy words with Garcia by doing what he does best — closing out tournaments, even if he let this one turn into a tense duel over the final hour at the TPC Sawgrass. Tied with Garcia with two holes to play, Woods won by finding land on the last two holes for par to close with a 2-under 70.

If only it were that simple for the Spaniard.

Skier Lindsey Vonn applauds as her boyfriend Tiger Woods receives the trophy after winning The Players Championship golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass, Sunday, May 12, 2013, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Photo by John Raoux/AP Photo.

Garcia was standing on the 17th tee shot, staring across the water to an island as Woods made his par. He took aim at the flag with his wedge and hung his head when he saw the ball splash down short of the green. Then, Garcia hit another one in the water on his way to a quadruple-bogey 7. He completed his stunning collapse by hitting his tee shot into the water on the 18th and making double bogey.

Woods was in the scoring trailer when he watched on TV as Swedish rookie David Lingmerth missed a long birdie putt that would have forced a playoff. It raced by the cup, and Lingmerth three-putted for bogey.

“How about that?” Woods said to his caddie, Joe LaCava as he gave him a hug.Woods won The Players for the first time since 2001 and joined Fred Couples, Davis Love III and Steve Elkington as the only two-time winners at the TPC Sawgrass. It was his 78th career win on the PGA Tour, four short of the record held by Sam Snead.

Lingmerth closed with a 72 and finished two shots behind along with Kevin Streelman (67) and Jeff Maggert, who also was tied for the lead until finding the water on the 17th to make double bogey. The 49-year-old Maggert birdied the 18th for a 70.

Garcia took 13 shots to cover the final two holes — 6-over par — and tumbled into a tie for eighth.

Woods made this drama possible by hooking his tee shot into the water on the 14th hole and making a double bogey, dropping him into a four-way tie with Garcia, Maggert and Lingmerth. The final two holes came down to Garcia and Woods, most appropriate given their public sniping at each other this weekend.

It started Saturday when Garcia complained in a TV interview that his shot from the par-5 second fairway was disrupted by cheers from the crowd around Woods, who was some 50 yards away in the trees and fired them up by taking a fairway metal out of his bag. He said Woods should have been paying attention, and it became a war of the words the next two days.

“Not real surprising that he’s complaining about something,” Woods said.

“At least I’m true to myself,” Garcia retorted. “I know what I’m doing, and he can do whatever he wants.”

When they finished the storm-delayed third round Sunday morning, Garcia kept at it, saying that Woods is “not the nicest guy on tour.”

Woods had the last laugh. He had the trophy.

Garcia, when asked if he would have changed anything about the flap with Woods, replied, “It sounds like I was the bad guy here. I was the victim.”

The real villain was the infamous 17th hole, which knocked out Garcia and Maggert.

Woods said he didn’t hear Sergio Garcia hit his shot from the fairway ath the TPC. He didn’t see Garcia stare in his direction.

But he heard Garcia on television during a storm delay.

The Spaniard said the burst of cheers disrupted his swing, and he suggested that Woods was the instigator by thinking only of himself.

“Not real surprising that he’s complaining about something,” Woods said.

“That’s fine,” Garcia said when told of Woods’ comments. “At least I’m true to myself. I know what I’m doing, and he can do whatever he wants.”

A storm was brewing Saturday at Sawgrass even before the real storms rolled in and caused a two-hour delay, keeping eight players from finishing their round. And in the midst of the latest chapter in this Woods-Garcia rift, Swedish rookie David Lingmerth quietly went about his business and wound up atop the leaderboard.

Lingmerth finished a wild day with an 8-foot eagle putt on the par-5 16th and a 10-foot birdie on the island-green 17th to reach 12-under par when the third round was suspended because of darkness.

Tiger Woods of the USA putts for birdie on the fourth green during the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship at THE PLAYERS Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass on May 12, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images.

“I’m aware of where they’re at,” Lingmerth said. “I try not to look at the leaderboard when I’m out there. I’m just trying to do my thing. But having those guys behind me, I know they’re going to try to hunt me down, of course. But I’m just going to try to forget about all that and just try to do my thing.”

That starts just after sunrise. Eight players — including the top four — had to return Sunday morning to complete the third round. Woods and Garcia were on the 15th hole.

The best action Saturday was during the rain delay when Garcia was asked about the par-5 second hole.

“Well, obviously Tiger was on the left and it was my shot to hit,” Garcia said. “He moved all of the crowd that he needed to move. I waited for that. I wouldn’t say that he didn’t see that I was ready, but you do have a feel when the other guy is going to hit and right as I was in the top of the backswing, I think he must have pulled like a 5-wood or a 3-wood and obviously everybody started screaming. So that didn’t help very much.”

Woods said Garcia didn’t have his facts straight.

“The marshals, they told me he already hit, so I pulled a club and was getting ready to play my shot,” Woods said.

Asked if they talked it over when play resumed, Woods replied, “We didn’t do a lot of talking.”

Garcia wound up making a bogey on the second hole to lose the one-shot lead he had at the start of the round. Woods pulled off his shot, and then blasted out of the bunker to about 10 feet and made birdie to take the lead.

When storm clouds moved in, Garcia already hit a tough shot onto the green at No. 7, and Woods had to mark his ball in the fairway when the siren sounded to stop play. When they resumed, Wood hit onto the seventh green, and Garcia putted before Woods got there.

They were on the 15th hole when play was stopped because of darkness. Woods gave a brief TV interview, and Garcia came over to shake his hand.

Sergio Garcia of Spain plays his shot from the 11th tee during the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship at THE PLAYERS Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass on May 12, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images.

Garcia didn’t back away from his TV interview.

“It happens to me when I’m in Spain,” he said of the large crowds. “Obviously, it happens to him everywhere he goes. He gets a lot of people following, and I think you have to be very careful because there’s another guy playing. Sometimes you have to pay attention to what’s going on because if the other guy’s hitting and you do something when you’re in the crowd, the crowd is going to respond and it’s going to affect the other player.

“I think sometimes you have to be a bit more careful.”

Meanwhile, The Players Championship was shaping up to be quite a finish.

Lingmerth, who began his rookie season by losing in a playoff at the Humana Challenge, poured in par putts along the back nine to stay around the leaders, and then he raced by them with his eagle-birdie finish. He returns Sunday to play the 18th hole.

Stenson was the first to reach 12 under when he made a 20-foot birdie putt at the par-5 ninth, but what appeared to be a shoo-in birdie on the par-5 11th turned into a bogey when his second shot when just long and down a steep slope. It took him two chips to reach the green and he made bogey, and Stenson made another bogey on the 15th.

Garcia made par from deep in the woods and bogey from the middle of the fairway. He came close to a hole-in-one on the 13th hole, and went bunker-to-bunker for bogey on the 14th hole. Woods was far steadier, though certainly not spectacular. That birdie he made on No. 2 was his only one of the day.

Jeff Maggert, who also had a share of the lead at one point early in the day, bogeyed the last hole for a 66 and was the clubhouse leader at 9-under 207. Casey Wittenberg and Ryan Palmer also were at 9-under and still had to finish their rounds.

Lee Westwood whiffed a shot on his opening hole then his club nicked a pine tree on his downswing and the club went nearly a foot past the ball, leading to double bogey. Westwood was 6-under with three holes to play.

Hunter Mahan’s tee shot on the 15th hole got stuck high up in a tree, leading to double bogey, but then he rolled in an eagle putt from off the 16th green. He three-putted the 17th green for bogey and wound up with a 71, putting him at 8-under 208 with David Lynn of England, who had a 68. Lynn lost in a playoff last week at Quail Hollow.

Through all that, Woods and Garcia generated the biggest buzz.

The Woods-Garcia relationship already was frosty. In Tom Callahan’s book on Woods, “His Father’s Son,” he writes about the time Woods saw Garcia in the clubhouse watching a TV monitor and trying to cheer a player’s putt out of the hole.

Woods was said to be put off when Garcia celebrated wildly after winning a Monday night “Battle at Bighorn” exhibition in 2000. During the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, which Woods won wire-to-wire, Garcia complained that play should have been stopped in the second round because of the rain.

“If Tiger Woods would have been out there, it would have been called,” Garcia said that day.

Saturday was the sixth time Woods and Garcia have played together in the final group on the weekend. Woods went on to win the previous five tournaments.

There is plenty of work left at Sawgrass. And if there is no change on the leaderboard Sunday morning, Woods and Garcia get to play together again.

Next up is Woods and Garcia in the final group on the weekend, which is sure to add even attention to the stage that is Sawgrass.

Garcia didn’t miss a fairway and putted for birdie on every hole on the back nine and wasn’t gaining any ground. That changed on the front nine when he made seven straight putts — five of them from about 15 feet or longer — to race by Woods and into the lead.

“When you start going like that, obviously it feels great,” said Garcia, who was at 11-under 133. “Everything seems kind of clearer in your head. You seem to see the break. You seem to feel like everything is a little bit easier, a little bit smoother, and you hit the putt and it manages to go in.

“If it was easy, we would have plenty of those, but it’s not,” he said. “Enjoy them while you have them.”

Woods looks like he’s having a good time on the course that has vexed him more than any other on the PGA Tour, and he could be the greater threat on the weekend. Already a three-time winner this year on tour, Woods has rarely put himself in trouble and had his second straight 67.

Woods was at 134, his best 36-hole total by six shots at this tournament, including the year he won.

He tied for the lead with a 5-wood into 20 feet for eagle on the par-5 second hole, and then took the lead alone with a short birdie on the fourth. But it didn’t last long. Garcia, playing in the group ahead of him, ran off five straight birdies, finishing that stretch with a 20-foot putt on No. 5 and a 25-footer on No. 6.

Woods and Garcia have played together on big stages — Bethpage Black, Royal Liverpool — with a big edge for Woods.

They first were linked when the Spaniard was 19 and gave Woods all he could handle at Medinah in the 1999 PGA Championship. They were paired in the final round of the 2002 U.S. Open and 2006 British Open, both won by Woods.

Asked about the possibility of playing with Woods on Saturday, Garcia said he wouldn’t see it as anything but another round of golf.

“I don’t have to measure myself against anybody,” Garcia said. “I know what I want to try to do, and any given day I can shoot a round like this and any other day he can shoot a good round and beat me. Like we always say, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. So there are going to be good days and not so good days, so just got to enjoy the good ones as much as possible.”

Woods again handled the par 5s and now has played them in 8-under for the week, including his eagle. What impressed him more was his overall game. He was asked if there was any part of his game that made him unhappy.

“No, I’m pretty pleased with where it’s at right now,” Woods replied.

The reporter looked at him, waiting for more. Woods looked back and finally added with a grin, “Did I answer that?”

With the tournament only halfway over, this is far more than a duel between Woods and Garcia.

Tiger Woods of the USA plays a shot from the 11th tee during round three of THE PLAYERS Championship at THE PLAYERS Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass on May 11, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images.

The 18 players within five shots of the lead include three current major champions — Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and Rory McIlroy — along with Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, Steve Stricker, Hunter Mahan and Zach Johnson.

Westwood chipped in from 100 feet for eagle on the 11th hole and was atop the leaderboard until making pars on his last eight holes. He had a 66 and was two shots behind, along with Kevin Chappell (66) and Stenson, who had two eagles on the front nine in his round of 67.

Ryan Palmer, who learned Thursday night that one of his best friends died in a car accident in San Antonio, had two eagles in a round of 69 and was three shots behind. Defending champion Matt Kuchar birdied three of his last four holes for a 66 and was at 7-under 137, along with Scott, Mahan and Johnson.

McIlroy was coming off back-to-back bogeys when he chose to go for the green in two at the par-5 ninth — he had planned to lay up each day. He hit the trees and got into a mess, and McIlroy made his third straight bogey. He rallied on the back for a 72 and was in the group at 6-under 138.

“I’ve made the cut, which I’m delighted about,” said McIlroy, who had missed the weekend his three previous times. “But I am in there with a chance.”

Graham DeLaet of Weyburn, Sask., followed his opening round 71 with a 70, and is eight shots off the pace at 3-under 141. David Hearn of Brantford, Ont., bettered his opening round with a 71, and is 10 back.

Woods won The Players in 2001, highlighted by that 60-foot putt on the island green described by NBC Sports analyst Gary Koch as “better than most.” But he has only seriously contended twice, and he has failed to crack the top 20 eight times in 15 appearances.

Woods is accentuating only the positive.

“Even though I haven’t played well in the past, I’ve still won here,” he said. “Actually, I’ve won here twice, technically.”

He was referring to the U.S. Amateur in 1994, the first of his three straight titles.

“I haven’t played my best here, but I’ve always felt that courses, even though it’s been a while I’ve won on them, I’ve still won on them,” Woods said. “I know how to get around this golf course. This course, more than most, really tests every facet of your game. You have to drive the ball well. You have to hit your irons in the correct spots, and if you don’t hit your irons in the correct spots, you’re going to have some really funky up-and-downs.

“It’s trying to manage the ball in the correct spots, and I’ve done that the first two days.”

Woods twice made bogey, both times missing the fairway to the right on No. 14 and No.

7. He finished with a 20-foot birdie putt.

Garcia, for two hours, looked like he couldn’t miss.

His streak began with a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-5 second. He stuffed his tee shot into six feet on the third, and hit wedge to eight feet on the fourth. He followed that with his two long birdie putts, made a putt just inside 15 feet for par on the seventh and ended his big run with the 40-footer on No. 8.

Garcia also is a past champion, winning a playoff in 2008.

“Fortunately for me, I’ve managed to play quite decent on this golf course,” Garcia said. “So any good thing that you can get in your head, it’s obviously positive and those kind of things always help. But it’s a different year. We’ll see if we can manage to do something similar.”