Bridgestone Invitational 2013 scores: Tiger Woods leads by 7 strokes

A day after shooting a 61 and teasing a sub-60 round, Tiger Woods’ third-round 68 seemed downright pedestrian in comparison. Still, it was good enough to keep him well in front of the pack and Woods leads by seven strokes after 54-holes.

He got off to another strong start with birdies on his first two holes. From there, Woods was in cruise control most of the round. He racked up pars over the final 16 holes with a few bogeys and birdies mixed in. After the way he scorched Firestone on Friday, Woods’ bogey-par-bogey stretch on the 14th, 15th and 16th almost felt like a slump. Not to worry though, Woods birdied No. 17 and parred No. 18 to finish his round at 15-under.

Woods’ lead was never in question on Saturday as most players struggled to keep pace, yet alone make a run. Henrik Stenson trails Woods by seven strokes while Jason Dufner is in third at 7-under, eight strokes off the lead. Those two and a handful of others should have an exciting battle for second place on Sunday.

The drama of who will win has been taken out of the equation barring an epic meltdown by Woods, a disqualification or some other occurrence that forces him to withdraw. Barring the unforeseen, Woods will cruise to his fifth win of the season. The victory will be Woods’ 18th win in a WGC event. According to Justin Ray of ESPN, no other player has won more than three WGC events.

Here is a complete look at the leaderboard heading into Sunday’s final round.

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