11-0; +5.42pts Pre-tournament plays: LAY 20pts liability Si-Woo Kim 40 mc Jim Furyk 29 mc Luke Donald 120 mc K.J. Choi 220 mc Chris Stroud 300 72nd Pre-rd3 plays: LAY 20pts liability Russell Knox 11 3rd Seamus Power 180 28th Marc Leishman 75 24th Knox may be in 4th place and four shots off the lead, but his ball-striking has been poor so far this week - 53rd in dirving distance, 98th in driving accuracy and 34th in greens in regulation - which suggests that he has overachieved to be in this position rather being in prime form to challenge Woodland A shor further aback is Power who has finished mc-29th-57th in his rookie season so far - it's been an impressive performance so far this week, but a top-10 finish would be a very good result from this position Leishman is much more experienced at this level, but he has a lot of player to pass in order to win - he is currently 19th - so I am surprised that he is at double-digit odds to oppose Pre-rd4 plays: LAY 20pts liability Webb Simpson 19.5 24th Chris Kirk 70 7th Ben Crane 180 15th Simpson may be in 5th place, but he has shown very little form over the last three months and his ball-striking this week has not been representative of his leaderboard position - he ranks 41st in greens in regulation - so he looks unlikely to improve his scoring enough today to overcome the four-shot deficit to Woodland Kirk led this event after day one and has fallen further down the leaderboard with each round so I see little chance of him reversing the trend today Crane is alongside Kirk in 10th place and six shots off the lead, but this is a very good achievement in itself as it is only the second time in six starts that he has made the cut - with such lack of form/confidence a serious challenge to the leader looks very unlikely |