O'Hair in familiar spot, hopes for different outcome in '09

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Sean O'Hair could become the first American under the age of 30 with three PGA TOUR wins

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Sean O'Hair has been there before. A year ago to the day, in fact.

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Only last year, he was merely tied for the lead at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard with five others, most notably one Tiger Woods. On Sunday, he'll have the relative luxury of a five-stroke advantage over the game's No. 1 player when they tee off at 1:05 p.m.

So what if he bogeyed three of his last four holes on Saturday? O'Hair wasn't the only one leaking oil on a wild and wind-whipped afternoon at the Bay Hill Lodge and Club when only four players managed to break par.

"The fact of the matter is there's one more round of golf in this event, and I'm going to focus on it like I would Thursday," O'Hair said firmly. "... I'm not going to play anybody else, I'm just going to play the golf course ... and add them up at the end."

His tally on Saturday was 71, which was six strokes higher than his second-round score but equally as solid given the conditions. His short game wasn't quite as "tidy" he said, but Bay Hill's greens were just as vexing and the wind wrecked havoc for all involved.

"Anything around even par today I thought was a great score," O'Hair said. "Obviously you saw that with everybody else how they finished."

Take Woods, for example. Not only did the defending champion bogey No. 16 with an approach that hit the cart path and bounced 40 yards right of the green, Woods turned a double into an all-world bogey on the final hole Saturday.

Woods drove into the right rough and then tried to muscle a wedge into the left greenside bunker. The wind caught the ball, though, and knocked it down into the grassy bank beside the water that fronts the green, buried so deep that Woods never found it.

So Woods took the long walk back to take his drop and then proceeded to put his fourth shot on the green. Then he nailed the 25-footer for bogey, the longest putt of the tournament, eliciting a roar that echoed across Arnold Palmer's playground.

"I had to be so patient with the round," Woods would later say. "No one is tearing this place apart."

The celebratory fist-pump at the 18th was subdued, but may have sent a message. A year ago, Woods made a birdie putt from 24 feet on the same green to win the tournament by one stroke over Bart Bryant, who was waiting for a playoff in the scoring trailer.

O'Hair got a first-hand look as Woods whipped off his cap and threw it to the ground in jubilation that Sunday afternoon. He'd closed with a more than respectable 69 but O'Hair finished three strokes behind in his bid to win for the second straight week -- and he remembers the feeling well.

"Obviously it was cool to see the putt go in," O'Hair said. "It didn't matter for me obviously because I was out of it, but it was cool to see that whole thing on 18. ... You had a feeling when he was stalking the putt.

"But as a competitor you're just ticked off that you didn't have the opportunity to take it to 18."

O'Hair gets a mulligan on Sunday. He's only 26, with his third child on the way, and the soft-spoken Texan-turned Floridian-turned Pennsylvanian could become the first American under the age of 30 with three PGA TOUR wins.

An iffy weather forecast that forced tournament officials to opt for a two-tee start in the afternoon could complicate the issue for everyone involved. Rain is supposed to move in during the wee hours and continue until noon with potentially strong winds.

"It may soften up, the wind may blow, it's supposed to be a little bit cooler," Woods said. "We'll see what happens when we get out here ... whether we're able to shoot low scores or not or we're going to have to play like we have been the last three days."

O'Hair likes the tough test, thank you very much, and he'll certainly face one against Woods on Sunday. But he knows better than to get caught up watching the world No. 1. He's smart enough to know that he must be doing something right if he finds himself in the final group on Sunday, too.

"I don't think I can do anything that's going to make him play worse," O'Hair said. "So I think I'm just going to focus on me and focus on my game and do what I'm doing right now, and that's just playing shot to shot and add them up at the end."