A stiff and sore Woods, the overnight co-leader, arrived at Sedgefield Country Club about three hours before his round to receive treatment on an undisclosed ailment.
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Two-time champion Lydia Ko and first-round leader Karine Icher of France were tied for second, two strokes back. Gore had a 62 to reach 15-under 195.
“Finally, I got something out of my round”, said a relieved Woods, whose miserable 2015 took a distinct turn for the better Thursday. “There’s a bunch of guys…at 13 [under]”. A slew of young players have come along, guys he’s never even heard of, let alone met. And he’s scrapping at the bottom of the PGA Tour to make the FedEx Cup playoffs, just like them. Jonas Blixt and Scott Brown were also at 13 under.
“I know it’s insane to say, but I wasn’t playing that poorly at PGA“, Woods said. Campbell shot 65, and Love had 66.
Former Wyndham winners Webb Simpson (64) and Brandt Snedeker (67) were three strokes back along with Paul Casey (66), Jim Herman (66) and Cameron Percy (67). Starting the week at No. 187 in the points standings, Woods conceivably could have jumped into the top 125 and next week’s field at The Barclays with at least a solo second-place finish.
“This is the best I’ve felt in a while and obviously the best I’ve played, so I just want to keep making progress”. “I kept leaving my iron shots above the hole”. “I didn’t expect I was going to cry”, Day told ESPN at the time. “Some I made, some I didn’t”.
He was able to get up and down from in front of the green on 17, but on 18 his 5-footer for par spun around the hole.
Coverage will continue through the final round on Sunday as fans tune in to see if Woods can pull off a win or implode once again. It would be premature to suggest Woods’s good start means his recent troubles are behind him, because the course, softened by heavy rain, was there for the taking, and players were allowed preferred lies. The numbers being thrown around to compare the two were that Woods has 79 career PGA Tour victories compared to Hoge’s 79 rounds played.
Blixt joined him at 12 under moments later, then jumped ahead with a birdie on the 17th. He will face Virginia junior Derek Bard of New Hartford, New York, in the 36-hole final Sunday.
For some gamers, the precedence was to earn sufficient factors to qualify for the playoffs or hold their tour card for subsequent yr. Hoge followed his opening-round 62 with another low number with birdies on three of his final five holes.
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Couples, from Seattle, played in the featured group with Bernhard Langer and Jeff Maggert, coming off his third victory of the season two weeks ago in Alberta.
