Rookie Lingmerth takes Players lead

Garcia, Woods 2 shots back after tiff as stormy weather delays finish of 3rd round until today

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — A rift between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia attracted all the attention on a stormy day at Sawgrass. Swedish rookie David Lingmerth quietly went about his business and wound up atop the leaderboard Saturday in The Players Championship.

Lingmerth finished a wild day with an 8-foot eagle putt on the par-5 16th and a 10-foot birdie on the island-green 17th to reach 12-under par when the third round was suspended because of darkness. It was delayed nearly two hours because of threatening storms.

Woods, Garcia and Henrik Stenson — all former Players champions — were 2 shots behind. Ten players had to return this morning to complete the round.

The Woods-Garcia relationship already was frosty, and an incident on the par-5 second hole was sure to add another layer of chill.

Garcia was hitting his second shot from the fairway when he was disrupted by a burst of cheers from the large crowd gathered around Woods in the trees. Garcia snapped his head over to the left and glared.

The cheer was for Woods taking a fairway metal from his bag, a risky shot because he had only a 15foot gap to escape the woods. During the storm delay, Garcia suggested in a television interview that Woods was the instigator.

“Well, obviously Tiger was on the left and it was my shot to hit,” Garcia said. “He moved all of the crowd that he needed to move. I waited for that. I wouldn’t say that he didn’t see that I was ready, but you do have a feel when the other guy is going to hit and right as I was in the top of the backswing, I think he must have pulled like a 5-wood or a 3-wood and obviously everybody started screaming. So that didn’t help very much.”

Woods was aware of the comments and said Garcia didn’t have his facts straight.

“The marshals, they told me he already hit, so I pulled a club and was getting ready to play my shot,” Woods said.

“And then I hear his comments afterwards, and not real surprising that he’s complaining about something.”

Asked if they talked it over when play resumed, Woods replied, “We didn’t do a lot of talking.”

Garcia wound up making a bogey on the second hole to lose the oneshot lead he had at the start of the round. Woods pulled off his shot, and then blasted out of the bunker to about 10 feet and made birdie to take the lead.

When storm clouds moved in, Garcia already hit a tough shot onto the green at No. 7, and Woods had to mark his ball in the fairway when the siren sounded to stop play.

When they resumed, Wood hit onto the seventh green, and Garcia putted before Woods got there.

They were on the 15th hole when play was stopped because of darkness. Garcia didn’t back away from his TV interview.

“It happens to me when I’m in Spain,” he said of the large crowds. “Obviously, it happens to him everywhere he goes. He gets a lot of people following, and I think you have to be very careful because there’s another guy playing.”

Lingmerth, who began his rookie season by losing in a playoff at the Humana Challenge, returns today to play the 18th hole.