Woods by 1 over McDowell heading to Sunday at Bay Hill

Tiger Woods shared the 36 hole lead at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill with Charlie Wi. At the end of round three, the 71 time PGA Tour winner would hold a one shot lead over Graeme McDowell.

Neither Woods or McDowell, exactly lit up the course today in round three. As both players carded rounds of one-under, 71.

Though the pair did manage to do enough to be paired together in tomorrow's final round.

Woods, who finished with a clean card during round two, had a few marks on the card today.

Beginning his round with a solid par, he would give a stroke back quickly with a bogey on the par-three, 4th.

After a par on No. 3, two birdies on his next three holes would get him back to Red numbers. Going out in 35.

The back-nine is where the score card got colorful.

Birdies on 11 and 13, were followed by a bogey on the par-three, 14th. A double on the par-four, 15th. Then wrapping the roller coaster of four holes up with a birdie on 16. Which would prove to the be the last of the day for Woods.

McDowell did not have quite the ride as Woods did on his third round at Bay Hill.

The 2010 U.S. Open champion opened with two straight pars before his first; and only, slip of his round.

That came at the Par-four, 3rd. A bogey there would push him back to Even on his round.

McDowell would go on a par run stretching over his next 12 holes, before carding his second and final birdie of the day, on the par-three, 17th.

A par on the finishing hole would give him his one-under, 71. And a final pairing match up with Woods.

This final round pairing will stir images of their last final round pairing, at the 2010 Chevron World Challenge. A match up that saw McDowell come away the victor.

Could we see a sort of 'match play' setting in the final pairing? Woods doesn't see it that way.

“No, not at all, because we have got guys right behind us,” Woods said after his round. “Obviously Poults and Ernie played well today, and it's the type of golf course that you can post a good number here. So we need to get off to good starts, and go ahead and just play our games.”

McDowell contends, “The golf course is going to be the main competitor tomorrow. We've just got to go and play against it. It's an old cliché: ‘Go and play the course.’ But when the setup is this difficult, you really can't be focused on what anybody else is doing.”

Will this be the Sunday we see Woods return to the winners circle on the PGA Tour, for the first time since the 2009 BMW Championship?

We are a mere 18 holes away from that answer.

No comments:

Post a Comment