AT&T National round three: By the way Kevin, you've scored an ace

How can you not know you’ve hit a hole in one? It was pointed out to me in a reply to my blog Saturday that CBS missed Kevin Stadler’s ace at the 13th. But then so did Stadler himself, and his playing partner Tiger Woods.

“We didn’t know it,” Tiger said later. “We both walked off the tee and he was talking to his caddie … All of a sudden the crowd erupted and he looked around and said ‘What happened?’ ” Oh, not a lot really Kevin, just a hole in one is all.

Not that it did our Kevin a whole lot of good. He’s still seven shots back going into Sunday and with the greens seriously toughening up I reckon that’s probably too Herculean a task even for the awesome but luckless Tiger we saw Saturday. His oh-so-near misses with the putter - and his subsequent frustration - are well documented. “Inches from greatness,” was how one headline writer summed it up.

We’d all love Tiger to reverse his luck with a big charge, but two things are against him. The firmer greens will likely cut birdie opportunities, and even had he made those near misses Saturday he still would probably have ended with a six under 64. That would have been an excellent round - one better than anyone has managed so far this week - but not enough to overhaul Stuart Appleby’s Sunday morning lead.

Appleby did show some ragged signs at the turn Saturday, but he’s been there, done that and proved in the past that he can handle the last lap, so I have him down as at least making par. The key to Appleby’s transformation is his putting, with a rearranged grip that seems to have quite a few people baffled. Who cares if it works?

But it’s K J Choi who still tops the putting charts. Despite struggling a little with the harder greens Saturday, it was his approach work that let him down most, and then not by much. Choi’s a gritty competitor, as he showed coming from five shots behind to win the Memorial, and looks a big threat.

It’s a reasonably high-quality chasing pack as well: Steve Stricker has knocked on the door a few times this season and has stats to rival the leaders, Charley Hoffman is already a winner this season, Lucas Glover has caught the eye once or twice and Jim Furyk has fought back valiantly to join Woods and Stadler on two under. Unfortunately, if that’s a big job for Tiger, it’s surely a mission impossible for Jim.

It’s a bit of a shock to the system to see Mike Weir and Shigeki Maruyama among the leaders though. Weir’s ball-striking has been particularly good, let down by weak putting that looks to be his undoing Sunday. Conversely, a blazing putter has propelled Maruyama to 6th place. Puzzling though, that he doesn’t rank higher than 60th for any of the other disciplines.