Tiger's 62 the result of a perfect storm at Cog Hill

LEMONT, Ill. -- Take the world's best golfer. Get him motivated. Get him dialed in. Get him comfortable on a course that has provided him plenty of success. And then let him do his thing.

Call it the Perfect Storm. That's what rolled into Cog Hill on Saturday afternoon, and the result was one of the best rounds in Tiger Woods' career, a round that was vintage Tiger, a round in which he separated from the BMW Championship field with such swiftness that you wonder if everybody else was playing one of the other courses not named Dubsdread.

Tiger's course-record 9-under 62 puts him at 16 under for the tournament and gives him a seven-shot lead entering Sunday's final round. As someone astutely -- make that wryly -- pointed out, Woods has never lost a tournament in which he's led by seven or more shots after 54 holes.

Unless the impossible happens -- and we're not simply talking lose-a-54-hole-lead-at-Hazeltine impossible, but rather, an impossibility of biblical proportions -- then Woods will regain the lead in FedExCup points at the reset.

The rest of the field can be thankful that a win on Sunday will not guarantee Woods the FedExCup trophy going into East Lake. Of course, if Woods continues to play like he did in the third round, it may not matter.

It may not have been his best-ever round, but it was certainly his best 18 holes since returning from major knee surgery. It's just the third 62 that Woods has shot in his career (he also has three 61s), and his lowest score in four years.

"It was just a round that kind of built upon itself," Woods said.

Hmm, that explanation probably doesn't do justice to the magnificence of the round. Perhaps these will.

"It was just kind of getting silly out there, the fact he was so dialed in," said Mark Carnevale, the PGA TOUR Network's reporter who followed Tiger every step of the way Saturday.

"It's tough when you walk away nine strokes worse than your playing partner and you feel like you're happy about your round," said Mark Wilson, who shared the second-round lead with Woods, giving him an up-close view in the last group Saturday.

"I've got to do something spectacular and he's got to maybe have a heart attack out there for me to have a chance," noted Brandt Snedeker, who will be paired with Woods in Sunday's final group.

So how did Saturday's Perfect Storm develop?

HE GOT BEHIND EARLY: For the second consecutive day, Woods produced a poor opening drive that led to bogey. Even after he bounced back with a birdie on the third hole, Woods saw that he was suddenly behind.

Padraig Harrington had jumped out quickly with a string of three consecutive birdies. Marc Leishman also had it in gear. At one point, Woods was actually three strokes behind.

That's when he knew that playing aggressive not only was an option, but a requirement if he wanted to stay in the hunt.

"I just figured that you had to get into double digits today," Woods said. He meant for the entire week. Of course, he nearly did it just in one day.

TWO KEY SHOTS: At the dangerous par-3 sixth, with the pin tucked in among bunkers front and behind the green, Woods took out a 7-iron and aimed for a sign about 15 feet right of the pin. With a high, sweeping draw, he landed in a perfect spot to let the ball feed into the hole. No player came closer than Woods' ball, which ended up 3 feet, 4 inches from the pin.

"The only thing you can't do there is go in the back bunker," Woods said. "That's one of the reasons why I didn't hit a 6 and try to hold it in there. I wanted to take the back bunker out of play. But I had to hit the 7-iron really good to get it there, and I pulled it off."

Then on the next hole, the par-4 seventh, he found the rough with his drive. For one of the few times during his round, he had to manufacture a shot, and he knew if he landed in the back bunker, he'd face a certain bogey. So he took some steam off his swing to prevent it from going long, while also hitting a cut shot, which usually requires speed. It's a tricky shot, but Woods ended up with 20 feet of the pin.

He was so glad to pull it off that he didn't even mind missing the birdie putt. He said it was his best shot of the day.

"I had to try to cut it and I didn't want to try to take something off of it, but I had to," Woods said. "It came off perfect."

YARDAGE NUMBERS WERE PERFECT: When Woods stood over his shots Saturday, he didn't have to worry about whether to swing harder than usual or take a little bit off it. He could take his normal swing, knowing that the distances to the pins were exactly what his club would give him. He didn't have to guess or adjust on many shots.

Woods described it as a "lot of good situations." That explains why his average putting distance of 21 feet, 7 inches after his approach shots Saturday ranked No. 1 for the day.

"I went after some flags just because of the situation, because I had a good number where I could make a full swing of it and kind of go after it," he said. "You end up five yards, six yards either way of a number, then you're kind of not doing that. But it just happened to work out that way today with just numbers all day."

Take the 3-wood he hit on the par-5 ninth. From 303 yards away, he stiff it to within 11 feet for eagle. Of course, he made it.

COMFORTABLE COG HILL: Woods has won four TOUR events here, but a redesign since his last visit in 2007 forced him to relearn the course. But the routing remains the same, giving him some familiar vibes. Despite whatever renovations it goes through, Cog Hill may be just one of those courses that is perfectly suited to Tiger's game, much like Torrey Pines South, where he won the U.S. Open last year.

"I've always felt comfortable playing this golf course for some reason," Woods said. "Even though, for instance, they changed Torrey Pines South, I still feel comfortable on the property. And this is very similar to that."

PUTTS ARE NOW FALLING: After struggling -- well, struggling by his standards -- on the greens in his last few outings, Woods is now getting putts to drop. He's missed only one putt in 49 attempts inside 10 feet, and because he's hitting his irons so well, he hasn't need to drain any bombs in the first three rounds.

Woods said it was never a matter of losing his putting stroke, even though the results at Hazeltine and Liberty National were not to his liking. That missed 7-foot putt on the 72nd hole of The Barclays, a putt that would have forced a playoff with Heath Slocum, now is just a bad dream. Tiger's putter has awaken.

"The stretch there where I didn't make any putts, I was hitting good putts and lipping them out," he said. "... I just felt that I wasn't that far off because I was hitting so many lips. They weren't blatantly bad putts; they were good putts that just weren't diving in. You've just got to stay patient through that stretch, and hopefully you'll come out of it quickly. It took me a couple of tournaments."

Yes, he's back in form now, producing the kind of round that leaves everybody else in awe. And in his dust.