Rory McIlroy dealing with sore back again

Poulter finished runner-up here in 2009 when Henrik Stenson won from five shots back to begin the day, matching 1998 Players champion Justin Leonard for the largest final-round deficit overcome at TPC Sawgrass. There are six players who will start Sunday within three strokes of the lead.

Sergio Garcia entered this week’s Players Championship as the main attraction following last month’s Masters win.

He now has broken par on the Stadium one time in his last seven trips around the course. “I don’t know, it can do anything”, Garcia said.

“I went back at it again on Friday [May 5] and instead of maybe gradually building up again, I hit balls for four or five hours and did the same on Saturday”, he said.

Holmes was cruising along when he reached the par-4 14th hole holding a one-shot lead.

Scott waited for the cheers and celebrations to fade when he took aim. Swirling winds and an unforgiving top shelf led to two balls in the water and an eventual quadruple-bogey 7. Can’t get too far ahead of yourself. Every par 4 has yielded an eagle. A 2-over 74 left him at 3 over after 36 holes. He felt he had no choice but to find a gap in the top of the trees and go for the green.

“I haven’t had a lot of success around here, so it’s definitely a challenge for me”, Johnson said. “These greens get pretty crusty, and historically, whenever firm Bermuda or greens are crusty to where it’s tough to set the putter down, I just struggle with my alignment and it just kind of throws me off”.

“I mean, obviously to have the finish that I had on Thursday and then shoot a solid round yesterday, make the cut, and then kind of free up a little bit today and play a little bit more like I was playing the week of the Masters”. “But it just didn’t cut”.

Compounding the frustration, Spieth blasted out to 45 feet and three-putted for double bogey. Garcia’s girlfriend, Angela Akins, was one of them. When they signed their cards, the difference was only three. It was in 2013 when Singh revealed in an American magazine that, in the effort to stave off Ol’ Father Time, he was using “deer antler spray” as a supplement.

Leaders Holmes and Stanley are veterans but neither has done much this season to distinguish himself.

BAGS PACKED: Jordan Spieth missed the cut, and he didn’t seem the least bit concerned. Grillo found his game on the back nine when he fired four birdies and shot a 32.

But there were example of swift changes in momentum all day. Harris English never got anything going and wound up with an 84. Leishman made bogeys on five of his final six holes to miss by two shots, and Brian Gay made a quadruple bogey at 18 to miss by four shots.

Rickie Fowler is shooting up the leaderboard. But he managed to settle down and made two birdies and no bogeys the rest of the way.

But the four-time major victor then bogeyed the fifth and although he did birdie the ninth for the third day running, he was unable to pick up further shots on the par-five 11th or short 12th, where his long-iron tee-shot bounded through the green. It has been like that every year. “But even like that, I felt like I fought hard the last two days after a awful start, and it’s a shame because today, without playing awesome, I felt like I could have shot 3-, 4-under par and that would have been really, really good”.