Deutsche Bank Championship round three : Tiger needs another fast start

Tiger Woods may well feel he’s been let out of jail as he prepares for Monday’s final round. He left TPC Boston thinking he’d be six shots back, but the final gap is only half that. No great hurdle for the man who came from three shots back to sweep past Vijay Singh with a stunning 63 here last year, the first player to win from behind on day four since the competition started in 2003.

He’ll need a similar fast start this year - he eagled both par 5s on the front nine to be 6 under on the day by the turn - because he is not alone in finding the back nine hard. He has just one birdie, cancelled out by a solitary bogey, to show for his efforts from hole 13 onwards.

So Tiger backers beware: he caught you out Saturday as you chased his price down to 1.9 at the turn. You must have had your hearts in your mouths as you watched it sail back up towards 5 before settling around 3.3. Unless he has really got going by the turn Monday, you may need to look for a quick exit.

So far Woods has not actually been playing well enough to win, for all that he has hit some spectacular shots. His stats are certainly no match for leader Brett Wetterich or Phil Mickelson, the two players currently sporting the best all-round figures. Mickelson still looks very dangerous, but needs to concentrate on making fairways like he did Saturday, so he can be more aggressive with the pins. He let that slip Sunday and ended up having to make too many par saves, good though they were.

It will be interesting to see if Tiger and Lefty fire each other up again in their two-ball, in which case Wetterich had better look out. Similarly, if Wetterich himself gets going anything like Saturday he could also have a lifting effect on his playing partner Arron Oberholser who, let’s not forget, came a useful 4th in the PGA Championship.

What may open this up to more interesting possibilities is the likelihood of wind becoming a factor. A steady 10-15 mph is forecast with gusts up to 25mph. That may set things up for a charge from the back. But it raises one other thought: it was pretty windy on the Sunday when Wetterich won the Byron Nelson last year, so he should feel right at home.