Tiger’s 65 his lowest ever at Players

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Tiger Woods turned in his best round of the season and his lowest score ever at The Players Championship.

It propelled him up the leaderboard.

Staying there might prove difficult considering the favorable scoring conditions at TPC Sawgrass.

Woods shot a 7-under 65 in the third round Saturday, besting his previous low score on the Stadium Course by a stroke. He honed in his iron shots, fine-tuned his putter and was so hot through 12 holes that it looked like he might challenge the course record.

“I wish I could repeat it more often, but honestly it was just a better start,” Woods said. “I got off to a much better-quality start.”

Woods took advantage of warm weather, soft greens and little wind by making birdies at three of the first four holes. He drained putts of 15, 5, 10 and 17 feet, regaining a scoring touch that eluded him last week at the Wells Fargo Championship and in the opening two rounds in Ponte Vedra Beach.

“Eventually I was going to put all the pieces together and today, for the most part, I did that,” he said. “I hit a lot of good, quality shots. I hit some shots in the correct spots, which was nice. I hit probably three of the best long irons I’ve hit all week.”

Woods pointed to his tee shot at the 242-yard, par-3 eighth, which landed a little more than 30 feet from the hole; his second shot at the par5 ninth, which stopped on the fringe from nearly 270 yards out; and his towering approach shot at the par-5 11th, which carried two bunkers and part of a pond before landing on the putting surface and leaving him a lengthy eagle putt.