Gathering Storm chases the leaders

GOLF

Graeme Storm is one of a handful of professionals threatening Tiger Woods's assault on the record books here at Doral. He is also the unlikeliest. The 30-year-old is, remarkably, seven-under for the 15 holes of his third-round in the storm-affected WGC CA Championship. Even more remarkably, Mr Unheralded from Hartlepool is within touching distance of Mr Untouchable from California.

Indeed, Woods will be flanked on all sides as he today attempts to win his eighth consecutive tournament. Storm is onebehind the world No 1, who is the only player in the top 18 not yet under par for the round. Nobody was expecting it, but Woods failed to advance his overnight 11-under total in 11 holes when the predictedweather arrived.

There in the locker room with him, as they waited for three increasingly irritating hours until officials eventually saw sense and called off play, sat his playing partner Geoff Ogilvy, three shots clear of Woods and one ahead of another Australian, Adam Scott. As Woods had watched putt after putt either lip out or slip by, Miami had warmed to the notion that the final day might not be as clear cut as first feared.

In fact, there was enough drama in his first two holes to suggest that a proper golf tournament had broken out. Woods missed a four- footer on the first, a five-footer on the second and looked anything but the history man on the trail of Byron Nelson's streak of 11 wins in 1945.

The 32-year-old, as he invariably does, righted his wrongs to birdie the seventh with a classic approach shot to two feet. But with Ogilvy extending his incredible bogey-free run at Doral to 47 holes and with Scott picking up four shots in the first six holes - kickstarted by an eagle at the first - Woods's task for today's 25 holes is just as he says he most likes it: sizeable. Vijay Singh only added to its scale by leaping from three-under to 11-under in the 16 holes the Fijian completed, which bettered Storm's own spectacular progress by one.

No one in the 79-man field would have been less inclined to welcome the siren than Storm. He had just birdied the par-three 15th when hitting an eight-iron to within a foot. This was his sixth birdie of the round and with the eagle on the 10th - where he holed a 30-footer - he was five-under for the first six holes of the back nine. Storm is on a roll that in many respects stretches back nine months.

The beginning of his professional career was so inauspicious he was forced to work in a cake factory to make ends meet. Last June, Storm got the breakthrough his endeavours deserved when winning the France Open and also recording a dozen other top-20 finishes. Six months ago, he led the USPGA Championship after the first round and that elite experience has clearly propelled him to a new level.

Meanwhile, fellow Englishman Ian Poulter canned two iron shots in the last four holes. The problem was that he had been forced to hole out with his wedge after a weight was dislodged on the back of his putter after he "dropped" the club on the path between the 14th green and 15th tee. He admitted afterwards that there was a degree of "frustration" in metal colliding with concrete, having just missed an eight-footer for par, although onlookers claimed the curious incident was rather more self-damning than was being claimed.

Whatever, Andy McFee, the European Tour referee, informed Poulter that as the nature of the club had been changed "other than in the normal course of play" he was not allowed to play on with it and was not allowed a replacement. Almost inevitably, Poulter began holing putts. "It's bizarre, I hadn't made anything of any length all day and then as I soon as I start using the wedge that 18-footer disappeared straight down the middle," said the Englishman after a 72 left him toiling on one-under. "I've another one in my room, thankfully."

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