   
| THE PLAYERS Championship: Third-Round Notebook  PGA TOUR Staff PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- For the second time in as many days, THE PLAYERS Championship had a double eagle Saturday after going the first 25 years at THE PLAYERS Stadium Course without one. Peter Lonard added his name to the record books Saturday with a deuce on the par-5 second hole. Lonard hit his tee shot 301 yards and then holed his second from 229 yards using a 5-iron. Hunter Mahan recorded the first double eagle in tournament history on Friday at the par-5 11th hole.  Peter Lonard gave his ball a celebratory smack after smacking it into the hole for a double eagle on Saturday. (Hunter Martin/WireImage)
• This is the first time there have been two double eagles in the same tournament since the 2005 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Tim Petrovic (PGA West) and Tag Ridings (Tamarisk CC) both did it, but at separate courses. The last time there were two double eagles on the same course came at the 2001 British Open, when Jeff Maggert and Greg Owen accomplished the feat. • Tim Clark had two eagles on Saturday, at the par-5 second hole and the par-5 16th hole. Clark is the 13th player in tournament history to accomplish the feat at THE PLAYERS. • Sean O'Hair birdied the final three holes Saturday to shoot a 66 and take the third-round lead at 9-under 207. O'Hair leads by one shot over Phil Mickelson and by two over Jeff Quinney and Peter Lonard. O'Hair is looking to earn his second career title, as he won the 2005 John Deere Classic. • Sean O'Hair has held the 54-hole lead only once in his PGA TOUR career. He led by one at the 2005 EDS Byron Nelson Championship. O'Hair fired a final-round 68 but finished second by one stroke to Ted Purdy. • Sean O'Hair is attempting to become the third-youngest winner of THE PLAYERS Championship. O'Hair is 24 years, 10 months and 1 day (Saturday). The youngest winners are Adam Scott (2004) at 23 years, 8 months, 12 days; Fred Couples (1984) at 24 years, 5 months, 28 days; and Hal Sutton (1983) at 24 years, 10 months, 29 days. • Sean O'Hair is leading the tournament partly because he's been the best ball-striker this week. O'Hair leads the tournament in Driving Accuracy, hitting 36 of 42 fairways (85.7%). O'Hair is also T4 in Greens in Regulation, hitting 39 of 54 (72.2%). Looking ahead to Sunday's final round, O'Hair is nearly perfect on the back nine, hitting 20 of 21 fairways this week. His only miss was the 10th fairway during the second round • Phil Mickelson birdied the final hole Saturday to shoot a 69 and get within one stroke of leader Sean O'Hair. Mickelson has played nine Sunday rounds at THE PLAYERS, but he has never shot a final round in the 60s. Mickelson's best final day was a 2-under-par 70 in 1995. His best finish in this event is a T3 in 2004. • Phil Mickelson continues to drive the ball a bit erratically but is being saved by his putting. Mickelson has hit only 20 of 42 fairways (47.6 percent) and is T74 in that category. He is also T54 in greens in regulation (30 of 54/55.6 percent) but has one-putted 50 percent of the time and has converted 50 of 52 putts from inside 10 feet. • Rookie Jeff Quinney's 8-under 64 was one shot off the course and tournament record. Fred Couples set the mark of 63 in the third round in 1992. Greg Norman matched that record with his 63 in the first round in 1994. • This is the third time this year that rookie Jeff Quinney has posted an 8-under par score in a PGA TOUR event. His others came in the first round of the Buick Invitational (64) and the second round of the FBR Open (63). • After recording 12 of his first 21 rounds on the PGA TOUR this year in the 60s, rookie Jeff Quinney fired his first round in the 60s since the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard in March. He shot 69 and went on to finish T72. • Rookie Jeff Quinney, who finished No. 6 on the 2006 Nationwide Tour money list, ran off a string of four consecutive top-10 finishes earlier this year, starting with a T4 at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. He followed that up with a T7 at the Buick Invitational, a 3rd at the FBR Open and a T9 at the Nissan Open. Quinney was as high as No. 8 on the FedExCup points list (after FBR) and No. 8 on the money list (after both FBR and Nissan). He currently ranks No. 31 on the FedExCup points list and No. 33 on the money list. • Charl Schwartzel tied the tournament record with a 6-under-par 30 on the back nine. The 22-year old South African turned the front side in 3-over 39 and then rallied with an eagle at No. 11 (11 feet, 5 inches) and added birdies at Nos. 13, 15, 16 and 17. He is the ninth player to shoot a 30 on the back nine and the first since Joe Durant did it in the second round of 2005. • Tiger Woods shot a 1-over 73 Saturday and is currently at 5-over 221 and tied for 64th place. • Tiger Woods has now posted three above-par rounds to open the tournament. The last time he registered three consecutive above-par rounds on the PGA TOUR came in rounds 2-3-4 of THE PLAYERS in 2005 (73-75-75). The last time Woods opened a tournament with three consecutive rounds above par was the 2003 PGA Championship. • Henrik Stenson posted a 6-under-par 66 on Saturday to vault up the leaderboard. His 2-under 214 total is tied for 16th place. Stenson won the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship at the end of February, but has made only four other starts on the PGA TOUR since then. • Stenson's 66 ended a run of 13 consecutive rounds in which he failed to break par. Following an opening 67 at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship, Stenson shot scores of 71-72-72 at the par-70 Doral Golf Resort & Spa Blue Course. He then posted 72-76-77-72 scores at the Masters and 72-74-72-76 scores at the Wachovia Championship. Stenson opened this tournament with rounds of 72-76 before breaking through Saturday. • Former champion Davis Love III was derailed late in his round Saturday, closing with a double bogey and a triple bogey to shoot 73. Love was 4 under for the day before hitting his tee shot in the water at the par-3 17th (his third of the week) and then drove his tee shot into the water on No. 18 as well. Love is at 5-over 221 and is tied for 64th place. • Jose Maria Olazabal ran off five consecutive birdies Saturday starting at No. 9. Olazabal's five in a row is one off the tournament record of six straight, first set by Tom Watson in 1984 and last matched by Tim Herron in 2005. • Robert Karlsson had an interesting round of 71 Saturday. He had eight birdies on the day but suffered a bogey and three double bogeys! • Three players were bogey-free on Saturday: Jeff Quinney (64), Henrik Stenson (66) and Heath Slocum (69). • Sean O'Hair became the 19th player to record a score under-par on each of holes 16, 17 and 18 in either round three or four of the PLAYERS Championship while it has been held at the PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. The last player to do so was Shaun Micheel in round four of 2004. Of the previous 18, the highest finish was by Lee Trevino in 1984, when he finished second to Fred Couples. • Phil Mickelson converted his first 35 putts from 10 feet or less during THE PLAYERS Championship this week. It's the first time this season on the PGA TOUR that Mickelson has converted his first 35 putts from 10 feet or less. Mickelson began two TOUR events in 2006 with streaks of 35 or more consecutive putts of 10 feet or less. At the Ford Championship at Doral, Mickelson converted his first 38 putts of 10 feet or less and at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, his first 39. • Jeff Quinney has made putts totaling almost 242 feet through three rounds of THE PLAYERS Championship. In the SHOTLink era, only two other rookies have made putts totaling 240 feet or more through 54 holes of the PLAYERS; 2006 David Howell (248 feet) and 2005 Graeme McDowell (272 feet). • After three rounds of THE PLAYERS Championship, Jose Coceres is averaging 25 putts per round. In only one of the 122 previous PGA TOUR events has Coceres averaged numbers this low after three rounds of play. In 2002 at Hilton Head, Coceres averaged 24.33 putts per round after three rounds. • Tiger Woods was paired with Henrik Stenson Saturday; Woods carded a 73 and Stenson a 66. That seven-stroke difference ties the largest difference between Woods and his playing partner in a weekend round of a PGA TOUR event since the start of the 2002 season. Ironically, the other occurrence also came at the PLAYERS. In the final round of 2004, Woods was paired with Padraig Harrington and shot 73 while Harrington had a 66. • During Saturday's third round of the PLAYERS Championship, the par-5 16th hole played to a 4.37 average, the easiest on the course. The 4.37 scoring average is the lowest ever recorded on the 16th during a third round of the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass. The only other round with a lower scoring average was round two in 2006, when the 16th scored to a 4.36 average. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
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