Mercedes Championship round three: Short of a real howler, it has to be Vijay

Luke Donald must be a bit miffed - one of only three players to fire three sub-par rounds and still he’s six shots off the lead. It certainly looks too big a gap to make up Sunday in these conditions.

For my money only Adam Scott and Trevor Immelman have a prayer unless there’s an inexplicable collapse by Vijay Singh. Sure, he gave away a three-shot lead last September in the final round of the Deutsche Bank, but that was to Tiger Woods. A price of about 1.5 strikes me as an exceptionally fair, if unappetising reflection of Singh’s current winning potential.

Through the first two rounds Vijay was giving a lot of credit to his new driver - a Cleveland HiBore - but what is now becoming clear is that it’s the turnaround in his putting that is really bringing home the bacon, again courtesy of a new, long putter. It’s certainly what saved him Saturday from some erratic - wishy-washy in his words - iron play.

The outstanding thing about Singh’s game has been the consistency of his scores, rather phenomenal given the capriciousness of the wind. The surprising thing about his game is that he isn’t three shots better off. His failure to master the easiest hole, the 18th, is a bit of a mystery even to him.

Scott or Immelman? I dearly hope they put up some kind of fight Sunday, if only to stop me nodding off in the small hours. But, let’s face it, even then there’s not going to be much in it from a punting perspective: I doubt there’ll be a huge amount of in-play liquidity given the time zones most punters are in.

Considering he’s not renowned for playing in the wind Immelman has done very well, let down by some poor putting. Scott looks to be firmly back in the groove with a second successive round of 69 that leaves him in a role reversal situation with Singh from the Tour Championship at the end of last season.

But, just as Singh was unable to make up the deficit there, I don’t see much chance of Scott doing it here either.