PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Paul Goydos doesn't have a Q-rating, an endorsement deal, or a top-30 finish in the last 16 months. What he does have for the first time in his career is a 54-hole lead - in The Players Championship, no less.

Seemingly immune to the mounting pressure and a course getting tougher by the day, Goydos seized the lead yesterday with a 10-foot birdie on the island-green 17th hold at TPC Sawgrass and a great escape on the closing hole for a 2-under 70 and a 1-shot lead over Kenny Perry.

Asked if he had ever had a 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour, Goydos shook his head.

"But I've only been on tour for 16 years," he said.

He was at 7-under 209, the highest score to lead at Sawgrass since 1999.

Perry saved par with a nifty wedge on the 18th hole for a 72 that put him at 210 and in today's final group. Sergio Garcia hit the ball as well as anyone for the second straight day, and got nothing in return.

Garcia was tied for the lead standing on the 17th tee, but he 3-putted from just outside 10 feet, then hit into the rough on the 18th and closed with another bogey for a 73, leaving him 3 shots behind.

Through three rounds, Goydos has taken 78 putts and Garcia 96.

Defending champion Phil Mickelson is 5 shots back after a 71.

LPGA Tour

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - Rarely spectacular but remarkable for her consistency, Annika Sorenstam shot her third consecutive nearly mistake-free round, and her 2-under 69 signaled that she may be ready to give Lorena Ochoa a run for No. 1 again.

The eight-time player of the year, plagued by injuries in a winless 2007, gave Ochoa and Jeong Jang up-close evidence that the steady game that made her the top female player in the world for so long is coming back.

Sorenstam stretched her bogey-free string to 53 holes before hooking her drive into the water on No. 18.

Even then, she drove again, hit a 6-iron within eight feet and made the putt, the bogey leaving her with a 3-shot lead over Jang (69) at 14 under.

The Swedish star, a two-time winner this year, has opened with rounds of 64 and 66.

Ochoa lost her putting stroke and fell back quickly. Her string of four bogeys in five holes ended just before Sorenstam made two long putts, both for birdie, to open an 8-shot lead over the woman who has taken her place at the top of the sport.

Ochoa holed a long birdie putt on the first hole and was 2-under par through seven holes, but 5 over after that, finishing with a 74 to drop into a tie for 10th.

European Tour

MILAN, Italy - South Africa's Hennie Otto shot a 9-under 63 to take a 4-stroke lead into the final round of the Italian Open.

Otto had a 22-under 194 total in the Castello di Tolcinasco course.

Swedes Christian Nilsson (64) and Robert Karlsson (69) and Spain's Alvaro Velasco (64) were tied for second. John Daly (68) was 14 strokes back.