Travelers Championship round three: Plenty ready to spoil Jay's fairy tale

You don’t end up with too many fairy tales in golf and it is questionable whether Sunday’s final round of the Travelers is going to add to them. It would be a great story if Jay Williamson won his way back onto the PGA circuit from his exemption, and he has played some impressive golf over the last three days. His accuracy off the tee is superb - he missed just one fairway Saturday and only six overall - which no doubt helped him top the field with his short game. If he can keep that up Sunday then of course he’ll be tough to beat.

But even though he doesn’t exactly have the golfing aristocracy bearing down on him, it’s still PGA wobbly Sunday and Williamson’s track record, though thin, is not exactly reassuring. The one time he previously led a PGA event Sunday morning (back in 1996, interestingly a stroke ahead of David Toms), he ended up 10 shots behind the winner. He flunked it again in the Nationwide in 98, albeit in a playoff.

Hunter Mahan, chasing that elusive first Tour victory, has also put together a shining all-round performance, leading with some sharp putting. Also, he doesn’t have the pressure of defending a lead. But he too must conquer the curse of the wobbles.

Although it’s not exactly an A-list lineup behind them, it’s far from Z-list either. A lot of people now fancy David Tom’s chances, but the way he took a careless dive into the water late Saturday indicated some drift creeping into his game which leaves me neutral. Fred Funk looks an intriguing possibility. He seems to have put his back problems behind him (sorry) and has played consistently well in some tough conditions.

But it may also be worth looking down to the fearsome foursome of Vijay Singh, Jerry Kelly, Justin Rose and good old Tom Lehman. With the wind looking set to recede Sunday, what is to say one of them doesn’t launch a charge to glory from seven behind? It’s been done before, by Brad Faxon in 2005 (via a playoff) - oh, and by Williamson when he came from seven behind for his Nationwide victory last month. There’s something quite poetic about that, but it would be a grim tale for poor Jay.

PS: Poor Stewart Cink. I was amused by this report of his six-over odyssey at the 15th on Saturday that , er, sunk any chances he might have had. Cink’s main concern afterwards seemed to be that people didn’t think he had been fooling around. “Just be sure you tell them I acted decent about it, not like a baby,” he told his playing partner Jason Gore. The article though, made the point that while you or I might pick up after the second or third bogey and slope off to the 19th tee for a consolation drink, the PGA Tour ensures the pros keep their noses to the grindstone and play it out to the end. I’d have some sympathy for that if it wasn’t for the fact that when I screw up I walk off the course empty-handed.