FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Graham DeLaet entered this week outside the top 100 bubble, but has played his way into next week’s  Deutsche Bank Championship … and perhaps beyond.

DeLaet

When he walked off the 18th green, he was tied for sixth on the leaderboard. Just as important, he was projected to finish 49th in FedExCup points after starting the week 106th.

“A lot of people think there's too much volatility in it, but it kind of worked in my favor,” DeLaet said. “One good event, you can really catapult yourself up.

“Now I feel like I've got a chance to get in the TOUR Championship, whereas this morning, i was just hoping to play next week.”

DeLaet was 2 over on his round after five holes, but he turned it around on the final 13 holes. He birdied three of his last four holes before making the turn, then shot a back-nine 30 that included three birdies and an eagle at the par-4 15th when he holed out from 152 yards.

DeLaet shot an opening 4-over 75 on Thursday but bounced back with a 67 in the second round before shooting a 1-over 72 on Saturday that included a disappointing double bogey on the 18th hole.

MORE: 18 things about DeLaet, from his wife Ruby

FARMINGDALE, N.Y.  -- With the leaders less than an hour away from teeing off, a few of the early players have made moves up the leaderboard in Sunday’s final round of The Barclays.

Jason Day shot a 5-under 66 that included an eagle at the par-5 seventh when he rolled in a putt from outside 40 feet. That leaves him at 1 under for the tournament.

The 66 ties Day’s lowest round of the year and might just be enough to get him inside the top 100 cutoff for next week’s Deutsche Bank Championship. The Australian started the week ranked 113th in points and was outside the top 100 projections after shooting a third-round 77. But the 66 now has him projected at 94th in points.

Bud Cauley is 4 under through 14 holes and 3 under for the tournament.

Graham DeLaet is also 4 under on his round through 15 holes, having eagled the par-4 15th when he holed out from 152 yards. He joins Cauley in the group at 3 under. DeLaet started the week ranked 106th in points but is currently projected at 77th.

Josh Teater is in the process of solidifying his spot in next week’s event. He’s 3 under through his first seven holes and 4 under for the tournament. Starting the week ranked 94th in points, he’s currently projected at 58th.

Click here for live FedExCup points projections

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – For the ninth time in his PGA TOUR career, Sergio Garcia enters the final round with at least a share of the lead.

He tees off at The Barclays in 50 minutes with a two-shot lead over playing partner Nick Watney. At last week’s Wyndham Championship, Garcia led by one stroke going into the final round and converted the advantage to win his eighth TOUR title.

Of the previous eight times he has led or shared the lead after 54 holes, Garcia has won three times (see chart below). Last week’s win was the first he had done so since 2004.

Do you think Garcia will maintain the lead and win the FedExCup opener on Sunday? Fill out the form below to join the discussion.

SERGIO WITH THE LEAD

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – The No. 1 fairway at the Bethpage State Park Golf Course has not been kind to Tiger Woods this week.

For the third time in four rounds at The Barclays, Woods missed the fairway left on the 430-yard dogleg right opening hole.

His tee shot in Sunday’s final round ended up next to a tent. Woods then took a free drop in front of a lemonade and pretzel stand. Woods was distracted by clicking cameras on his second shot, with his approach landing in the rough left of the green.

Woods ended up with bogey on the hole. It’s his second bogey (with two pars) at the opening hole this week. That dropped Woods to 3 under, seven shots behind tournament leader Sergio Garcia, who tees off at 1:40 p.m. ET.

Click here to follow the rest of Woods’ final round

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Saturday’s third round of The Barclays, the opening event in the FedExCup Playoffs, is now in the books. Here’s a look at the key FedExCup moves and notes from the Black Course at Bethpage State Park.

FEDEXCUP: Projected standings | Official standings

NO. 1 WATCH: Sergio Garcia takes a two-shot lead going into the final round. He entered this week ranked 33rd in FedExCup points after his win at the Wyndham Championship and is projected to move into the No. 1 spot if he wins on Sunday. Tiger Woods entered this week as the top player in points.

FIVE BIGGEST MOVERS: The biggest projected moves based on the 54-hole leaderboard:

BUBBLE WATCH: Roberto  Castro, who started the week as the FedExCup bubble boy at No. 100 in the final Regular Season standings, kept his scorecard clean Saturday. Castro had 16 pars and two birdies adding up to a 69. On a tough day for scoring, that pushed him 35 spots up the leaderboard to 27th. He now projects to move up to No. 79 in the FedExCup standings.

Currently on the FedExCup bubble is John Mallinger, who missed the cut at Bethpage Black and projects to drop from 88th to 100th in the FedExCup standings. Six players -- Gary Christian, Troy Kelly, Billy Mayfair, Fredrik Jacobson, Brian Gay and Trevor Immelman -- need to make up just one or two shots Sunday to potentially take Mallinger's tee time in next week's Deutsche Bank Championship.

MOVING IN/FALLING OUT: Only the top 100 in FedExCup points will advance to next week’s Deutsche Bank Championship. Here’s a look at the players outside the top 100 who are projected to move inside and the players who are projected to fall outside the top 100. (Last year, eight players from outside the top 100 entering The Barclays moved into the top 100 after the tournament).  * – Missed cut

ODDS AND ENDS: Kevin Stadler put himself in great position to make a long run in the FedExCup Playoffs by shooting a bogey-free 6-under 65 on Saturday. That was the low round of the day by two strokes. He now stands in solo third going into Sunday’s final round and projects to move to 16th in the FedExCup standings.  Stadler has secured his spot in next week’s Deutsche Bank Championship. He’s only reached the second leg of the Playoffs  just one time (2009) when he finished 95th in the FedExCup standings.  He entered this week ranked 70th. …

Gary Christian was projected to move from 111th to 54th in standings after the second round when he was tied for seventh on the leaderboard. But the PGA TOUR rookie shot a 6-over 77 and fell to a tie for 43rd. He now projects at 101st, which would eliminate him from the Playoffs …

Fredrik Jacobson shot a 79 on Saturday and now projects out of the top 100. He’s the only player of the five players who currently project outside the top 100 who is still playing … Meanwhile, David Hearn shot a 67 and now projects inside the top 100.

ELIMINATED PLAYERS: Nine players were eliminated from the FedExCup Players on Friday after the second round of The Barclays. Click here for the list

By Mike McAllister, PGATOUR.COM

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Of the 20 players with the latest tee times in Saturday’s third round of The Barclays, just two managed to avoid having at least one three-putt green: Brandt Snedeker and Ian Poulter.

Tough putting conditions on dry greens Saturday afternoon made three-putt avoidance nearly impossible. Tiger Woods had four three-putts, the most of any single round in his PGA TOUR career. John Huh and Vijay Singh had three three-putts. Justin Rose had a four-putt green.

Of the 75 players on the course Saturday, just 26 avoided a three-putt. Most of those players had early tee times before a couple of the greens became crusty in the afternoon.

Snedeker said the Bethpage State Park Black Course was a “different golf course” than on Thursday’s first round when 87 of the 123 players in the field avoided a three-putt green.

“I watched Justin Rose four-putt No. 8, could not keep the putt short of the hole,” Snedeker said. “The green was dead. It was just unfortunate.”

Thanks to his three-putt avoidance, Snedeker had the lowest round in the final 10 groups, a 3-under 68. The second lowest round belonged to Sergio Garcia in the last group. The Spaniard shot 69 and will take a two-shot lead going into Sunday’s final round.

Said his closest pursuer Nick Watney, whose only three-putt on Saturday came on the final hole: “They (the greens) changed a lot since early Thursday. Yesterday they were on their way to where they are now, which – there’s not a lot of grass in some spots. It’s very, very fast. Very, very firm. It was very difficult.

“The course just kind of beat you up.”

Here’s a look at the final 20 players (listed in order of tee time) on the course Saturday afternoon and their three-putt results in the third round:

· Henrik Stenson shot a second-round 65 at The Barclays but followed up with a 78 in the third. That 13-shot increase from one round to the next ties the largest difference in Stenson’s career on the PGA TOUR. At both the 2006 Nissan Open and the 2010 Frys.com Open, he shot a second-round 67 and a third-round 80.

· Tiger Woods has struggled this season on “moving day,” the name commonly given to the round prior to the final round. Woods was 1 over in the third round of The Barclays. This season, he’s a combined 8 under through 13 third rounds. Tiger’s -.615 third-round average so far in 2012 is the highest in any round in a PGA TOUR season in which he’s played at least 10 events.

· Nick Watney was able to birdie the 17th hole in the third round at Bethpage State Park, the only birdie of the day on that hole. Watney is 2 under on the 17th hole at The Barclays. In the two U.S. Open Championships played there (in 2002 and 2009) only three players were 2 under through three rounds: Matt Bettencourt, Phil Mickelson and Ben Martin in 2009 (all 2 under).

· Kevin Stadler got off to a rough start at The Barclays, but has rebounded from an opening-round 72 to score 68 in the second round and a 65 in the third. It’s the fourth time in his career that Stadler has improved his scores by at least three shots in both the second and third rounds. Stadler has played 28 consecutive holes without a bogey at The Barclays. If he can play five more holes without shooting over par, it will equal the longest bogey-free streak of his career.

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- Sergio Garcia needed two less strokes than playing partner Nick Watney in Saturday's third round of The Barclays. But that difference in score might not accurately reflect which player had the better day.

"I think Nick played amazing," Garcia said. "... Probably better than me. I thought I was just a little bit more fortunate."

Whether it was fortune or just solid play, Garcia is in control after 54 holes of the FedExCup Playoffs opener. After shooting a 2-under 69 on Saturday, he's 10 under for the tournament and will take a two-shot lead over Watney heading into Sunday's final round at the Bethpage State Park Black Course.

For Garcia, this week has been a showcase for his ball-striking skills, just like it was last week when he won the Wyndham Championship. Through the first three rounds at Bethpage Black, Garcia is tied for second in the field in fairways hit (78.6 percent) and tied for fourth in greens in regulation (75.9 percent).

And outside of his three-putt bogey early in Saturday's round, Garcia managed to navigate the dry, firm greens without significant harm. In fact, his putting has been a key part of his rise to the top of the leaderboard -- he ranks third in the field in strokes-gained putting.

"At the end of the day, all you can do is try to trust the line you pick, and the speed you think it's going to be," Garcia said when asked his patience on the greens. "And then just hope that you are guessing it right. 

"It is a little bit of a guessing game, you know, when the greens get like this."

Watney's only three-putt of the day came on the 18th hole. On the previous hole, the par-3 17th, he made the lone birdie of the day by any player in the field at that hole when he chipped in from the fringe. But he misjudge the slope of the 18th and was too aggressive with his birdie putt, running it 11 feet past the hole to finish with a bogey and an even-par 71.

It was a poor end to an otherwise solid putting day for Watney, who rolled in four putts from outside 15 feet.

Watney credited a Monday putting session (and a quick Saturday refresher) with Darrell Kestner, the Director of Golf at Deepdale Golf Club in nearby Manhassat, N.Y., for producing what he called his "best" putting week of the year.

"It's paid off huge," Watney said.

But he'll need to have that hot putter going in Sunday's final round ... and hope that Garcia doesn't run away from the field.

"I'm just going to, you know, just hang around," Watney said. "If Sergio goes out and shoots 4- or 5-under, you've just got to tip your hat. But I'm super-excited to be in the last group."

Garcia, meanwhile, would like nothing better than to capture his second straight tournament and move to the top of the FedExCup rankings.

"I just want to go out there and try to play the way I've been playing, try to believe in what I'm doing as much as I've been doing," Garcia said. "If I managed to win, that will be great. If I don't, it will still be great.

"I'll be giving it my best effort, so we'll see."

Sergio Garcia and Nick Watney are paired in the final group for Sunday’s final round of The Barclays. Their tee time is 1:40 p.m. ET.