England’s David Lynn went into this week’s lucrative Players Championship torn between returning home to be on hand at Wembley or remain in the States to tee-up in the $9.5m PTC Sawgrass tournament.
Lynn is a mad Wigan Athletic Football Club supporter and for his Masters debut last month he arranged for a few fellow club supporters to be among his Augusta National guests.
And knowing Wigan Athletic were set to play Manchester City in the final of the FA Cup, Lynn was seriously considering returning home to be at the game.
The former KLM Open champion was early into his third round when substitute Ben Watson headed in a 91st minute goal to deliver Wigan Athletic the greatest triumph in the history of the club.
David Lynn heading for another superb PGA Tour finish & looking to win after Wigan Athletic captured FA Cup.
The club is among one of the youngest in the Premiership having been formed in 1932, and they’ve waited since then for their first major title.
And Lynn responded to the victory posting seven birdies in a second straight 68 in the lightning affected event to be lying just four shots behind Sweden’s David Lingmerth who had still not completed his third round when play was halted.
Three players and each former Players champions – Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, Spain’s Sergio Garcia and American Tiger Woods – share second place and like Lingmerth still have not completed their third rounds.
UPDATE – END OF ROUND 3
Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia, two past champions of THE PLAYERS Championship, will enter the final round Sunday tied for the lead. Joining them is PGA TOUR rookie David Lingmerth, the Web.com Tour graduate making just his 13th start on TOUR.
All three players are at 11 under, having completing their third rounds on Sunday morning after play was suspended Saturday night due to darkness.
They share the 54-hole lead by one stroke over the trio of Henrik Stenson, Ryan Palmer and Casey Wittenberg. Jeff Maggert is another shot back at 9 under, while Hunter Mahan and David Lynn are at 8 under.
Garcia, the 2008 PLAYERS champ, and Lingmerth will be in the final twosome for Sunday’s final round. Woods, the 2001 champ, will play with Wittenberg, another Web.com Tour grad.
Lingmerth knows his track record at TPC Sawgrass can match Garcia’s or Woods’, but he isn’t planning to fade away in the final round.
“I’m expecting to be good,” he said. “I’ve been feeling good all week, so I’m expecting to be in it.”
Woods and Garcia had the most holes to finish Sunday morning with four, having stopped on Saturday after hitting their tee shots at the 15th hole.
Woods birdied the par-5 16th and parred the rest to complete his 1-under 71.
Garcia completed the 15th hole with a bogey but bounced back with a birdie at the 16th and then another one at the par-3 17th when he rolled in a putt from 12 feet.
Lingmerth, with just one hole to play, started off with a shaky drive that found trouble down the right side of the 18th fairway. That forced him into a bad spot with his second shot, leading to a bogey that dropped him to 11 under. He had led by two shots when play was halted Saturday.
“Honestly, I feel pretty good over it,” Lingmerth said about his first tee shot on Sunday. “Just kind of blocked it out. I was trying to hit a cut, which is my go-to shot really. I just kind of slapped it a little too much.
“The second shot was the one that was a little bit troubling. Hit a bad one there and got lucky to be on the fairway.”
Stenson parred his remaining two holes to complete his 1-under 71 and is at 10 under. Palmer birdied the 17th en route to a 70 and is also at 10 under.
“It’s not the easiest two holes to finish off in the morning at 7 o’clock, so I was quite pleased making two pars on 17 and 18,” Stenson said. “It’s a wide-open tournament, probably 10 or 15 guys that can win this thing.
“So happy to be out there and just going to go back and rest a little bit and come back ready for this afternoon.”
