Tiger Woods sets personal Sawgrass record and charges up The Players leaderboard

Tiger ignites the Players’ crowd and charges 60 spots up the leaderboard with a personal best round at TPC Sawgrass.

A spate of bogeys from Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, and a couple others late Friday night suddenly shifted the cut line at the Players Championship and gave Tiger Woods new life. For much of the afternoon, it looked like Tiger would miss the cut by a shot at TPC Sawgrass. Then came that late adjustment just before 7 p.m. ET and the top 70 (and ties) now included all those at 1-under. Tiger got another shot at 36 more holes.

It was a gift not just to him but for those watching too, as he torched TPC Sawgrass to the ground early on Saturday morning to put some life into this championship before lunchtime. Woods poured in five birdies in his first seven holes of the third round, making a dramatic leap up the board. He started the day in a tie for 68th and walked off the seventh hole, just 90 minutes into his round, in a tie for 17th.

It ended with Tiger walking off the 18th hole inside the top 10 after a third-round 65. It’s his lowest score ever on this TPC Sawgrass course in 66 rounds. The 65 is an impressive number, but you get the sense that Tiger will feel like it could have been better given the way his putter was rolling. After the round, he said “65 was as high as I could have shot today.

A bogey at the 14th was the only shot Tiger gave back to the Stadium Course. That followed by a missed birdie try at the 16th that took some steam out of the early run, but we’re still talking about a round that took him from 68th to eighth at the time he turned in his scorecard (it’s unlikely he’ll stay in 8th as the leaders get out there and start posting their own low scores).

The front nine charge came largely on the back of his putter, the club that was hot garbage last week in Charlotte. Woods had just eight putts through his first seven holes. It started right on the first hole when he put this 15-footer right in the center.

By the fifth hole, he knew he had something cooking with that club. It was there that he converted an unlikely birdie chance by draining this 17-footer that elicited our first big fist pump of the day.

There was no great dramatic shot in this round. Tiger nuked it off the tee, kept it in the fairway until late in the back nine, and then set up moderate-length birdie chances on almost every hole. There was no hole-out or outrageous approach shot — just steady tee-to-green work and a hot run with the putter.

Tiger started the day at 1-under and is now at 8-under and while that tie for eighth would mean he’s right back in the thick of it with a round to go, he has a Webb Simpson problem.

Simpson, the 36-hole leader, has also torched Sawgrass and should have set a new course record on Friday night. He started the day a good five shots clear of anyone else and a massive 14-shots ahead of Tiger. The largest 36-hole Players deficit that turned into a win was seven strokes and came from the diminutive Tim Clark back in 2010.

The 65 matches Jordan Spieth’s round of the day so far. Spieth did most of his work on the back nine, where Tiger cooled off coming into the clubhouse. Spieth birdied six of his last eight holes to also get to 8-under and there’s a good chance the two will play together in what could be Sunday’s power pairing.

Woods would need a real miracle and a lot of help from the pros, most notably Webb, ahead of him to be in contention come Sunday night. But as I wrote last night, let’s just enjoy the shots in a vacuum right now. This time last year Tiger had just had his spine fused and could barely walk and it seemed likely he would never play on Tour again. Now he’s given us a Saturday morning show at the game’s “fifth major.”

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UPDATES

• No. 9: Tiger made easy work of the par-5 9th hole, a spot that’s a must-make birdie if you really want to turn in a special score. This was the spot where he made eagle on Thursday afternoon. That had really been his only highlight through the first two days and it came when he launched a mid-iron up and over the trees to the back of the green. He made a similar shot on Saturday, and the ball ran out to the back of the green where he two-putted from 40-feet for his sixth birdie of the front nine. He’s out in 30, giddyup!

• No. 11: Tiger got his 7th birdie of the day, and his first on the back nine, at the par-5 11th hole. Woods landed safely on the green in two again, much like at No. 9, as the ball ran some 50 feet past the hole. But a steady two-putt from there added the red number without much stress.
• No. 12: The 12th hole is a driveable par-4 but there’s plenty of trouble and quick ways to make a mess of it. Tiger pulled a driving iron and pushed it out to the right. We got that traditional Tiger cursing as soon as the ball sailed right, as he called himself a “jackass” and “f**king idiot” on the tee. But an incredible approach shot put him to just seven feet, and he rolled it in without much drama. He stalked it into the cup, waking after it before it had even dropped.

This moved him into a tie for fifth! It was outrageous and the course record of 63 is within sight.

• No. 14 was the scene of our first bogey of the day. It’s a hole that has tormented Tiger in recent years. He can never seem to find the fairway and after pushing it into some mounds to the right the first two days this week, he did it again on Saturday. He also caught an awful lie and had no chance to get home in two. An underwhelming chip shot resulted in the two-putt bogey but it all started with that wildness off the tee, which is what’s hindered Tiger throughout this comeback season. He’s back to a tie for 8th and a shot at the course record is probably gone.
• No. 16 is really a must-make birdie if you want to break the course record and Tiger caught a cruel lipout. It was his first real bad break of the day, as the putt was good enough to drop but just had a little too much pace. Tiger has been hammering putts all day, a sign that he’s confident with the putter right now. A par is fine, but he’ll be pissed with it given this was a scoreable par-5. The real trouble came with his approach shot, which he flared out to the left into a bunker. It’s a disappointing par but the good news is he landed safe and dry at 17, even if it wasn’t on the tier of the green he’d prefer.

• Tiger finished with a tap-in par at the 18th. The back nine lost some juice after he was 8-under through his first 12 holes. He said after the round he thought it was a day where he could have got it to 10 under and set a new course record but he’ll take the 65 and a chance, albeit longshot, to contend in the final round. The final card: