GUT KADEN, Germany, 18 May 2003 — Padraig Harrington takes a two-shot lead into the final round of the Tour Players’ Championship of Europe today after Irish players dominated the third day’s action.

Irishman Harrington’s two-under-par 70 took him to 15-under-par 201, two better than young Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell, who carded a 68.

Two players are a further stroke back, South African Retief Goosen and Denmark’s Mads Vibe-Hastrup.

Tournament favorite Tiger Woods, though, failed to live up to expectations and an error-strewn 70 left him nine strokes behind Harrington.

Woods conceded he would “probably not” take his third successive TPC title and fourth in five years after struggling with his driving as well as having no luck on the greens.

No-one is ruling the world number one out, though. In 1998 he was eight strokes behind Ernie Els in the J W Classic in Phuket, Thailand, and went on to beat the South African in a playoff.

Among Harrington’s more likely final-day threats is another Irishman, Ulsterman Darren Clarke, lying four strokes back.

Clarke reduced his chances of completing the job he left undone in 1998 when he finished second at Gut Kaden to Lee Westwood, after he double-bogeyed the short 16th, losing a ball by thinning a greenside bunker shot into heavy rough. But it could have been two shots worse. Clarke thought he had found his ball and played out of the bunker to eight feet. He then discovered it was not his ball and, on the advice of a Royal and Ancient Golf Club referee, played another ball to a foot and holed it. Under R and A Rules he should have carried on with the ball he had found and putted out from eight feet, but was absolved from penalty by European Tour chief referee John Paramor because he had been wrongly advised.

Singh Shoots Second Straight

65 for One-Shot lead in Texas

In Irving, Texas, Fiji’s Vijay Singh shot his second straight five-under-par 65 to move into a one-stroke lead after the second round of the Byron Nelson Championship on Friday. The world number seven and two-time major champion stands on 10-under-par 130 after a tidy round in gusting winds at the Cottonwood Valley Golf Club.

Tim Petrovic took over sole possession of second spot after a four-under 66 at the TPC at Las Colinas in an event being played on two courses. Cottonwood is the shorter of the two venues being used this week but will not be played over the weekend, with the field playing 54 of the event’s 72 holes at Las Colinas.

After shooting a one-under 69 at Las Colinas, first-round leader Jeff Sluman is tied for third on 132 with Robert Gamez, Kevin Sutherland and Scott Verplank.