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TSN Senior Reporter

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After two days of getting beaten up, the TPC Sawgrass course fought back Saturday.

Oh, did it fight back.

The PGA Tour’s course for its marquee event, The Players Championship, was caught in a concoction of conditions with winds and low humidity that resulted in green speeds that bordered on ridiculous. Only three players managed to break 70 and there were seven cards totalling 80 or more. The best players in the game suffered through 149 three-putts (or more), the highest in the tournament’s history. The first two days, with double the number of players, there were a total of 122 three-putts. There were also 86 double-bogeys or worse.

“It was a little frustrating on how quick the greens got,” Jason Day said to reporters after his round, which included two doubles. “I said it earlier that I've never played golf where I'm trying to lag 10-foot putts just to get around the hole.”

Day ended up with a 73 – 10 strokes higher than his opening round – and maintained a four-shot lead.

“Crazy,” he added. “I could say something worse, but, no, everyone had to go through it. Everyone had to go through it, and it was just – it's just unfortunate that it kind of got them that quick.”

“I want to say this was the toughest day I've ever had to play in my life, I think.”

Rory McIlroy took 37 putts in his round of 75, the second-most in his PGA Tour career. Like most others who walked off the course, he did so shaking his head.

“That was borderline unfair on a few holes,” he said. “A few pin positions were on crowns, and you dribble a putt by, all of a sudden it's six feet by.”

The extreme speeds also meant a long day on the course for most players. Rounds were taking nearly six hours to finish. Playing in the final group, Day’s threesome completed 18 holes in five hours and 45 minutes.

The PGA Tour, which owns the course and runs the tournament, said there was no extra effort made to toughen things up.

“What happened today was just kind of a perfect storm with the weather,” PGA Tour official Mark Russell said. “We weren't expecting a 20 mile an hour wind all day, and the humidity 30 per cent, not a cloud in the sky. And they just, you know, sped up on us.”

Russell said the greens were double cut and then rolled prior to the start of the third round, just as they were the two previous days.

That seemed hard for some of the players to believe, with some suggesting that the first two days of low scores forced the extreme setup on Saturday. There was lots of grumbling after the completion of play and the tour officials got an earful from many of the golfers.

“Augusta is probably the quickest greens we play all year,” Billy Horschel said, “and I'm sorry, Sawgrass made those greens look like eights on the stimpmeter.”

Only Ken Duke managed to put together a decent round, firing a 65. Many of his peers called that a remarkable score considering the conditions. He moved up 54 spots on the leaderboard.

“What course was Ken Duke playing today,” joked Day. “Can anyone tell me?”