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Ian Poulter

Poulter, Casey lead weather-beaten Honda Classic

Steve DiMeglio
USA TODAY Sports
Paul Casey watches his drive on the 10th hole during the final round of the Honda Classic on Sunday. He plays the final 11 holes on Monday.

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Due to harsh and at times violent weather, the Honda Classic became a marathon of play and delay this weekend, challenging the mental and physical faculties of the players.

The unscheduled Monday finish, however, is a sprint.

Judging from the leaderboard, stampede may be a better description.

After a long Sunday in which many players played 27 holes, nine players are within four shots of the lead, with Paul Casey and Ian Poulter leading the pack, Patrick Reed one back and Phil Mickelson three back as no one has more than 11 holes to play to get to Monday's finish line.

Cited at times as a sport that is often far too dawdling for its own good, the rest of the final round will be anything but. There will be little time to play your way into the final round, and there will be little time to get ready as players must be in position on the course for resumption of play at 8 a.m. (Golf Channel, 8 ET).

The weather, however, is supposed to cooperate so the stop-and-go nature of the event is over as sunshine is forecast to greet the players.

Everything came to a stop on Saturday as winds hit 60 mph and nearly five inches of rain fell in six hours. A scoreboard wound up at the bottom of a lake. Overnight, however, golf crews repaired the damage well enough for play on Sunday, and in doing so, had to be keenly aware of snakes and water moccasins roaming the course. And in one instance, workers had to shoo an alligator out of three bunkers. And nearly every bunker needed care.

Poulter, who has an expensive taste for Ferraris, was in control of the tournament standing on the fifth tee in the final round. He had fired a 4-under-par 66 in the third round and had a three-shot lead before he hit a shank with his tee shot and took double bogey, then bogeyed the next hole after he found a water hazard with his tee shot. Poulter, who has the names of his Ferraris on his wedges, has 12 titles on the PGA Tour and European Tour but has never won a stroke-play event in the U.S.

"You don't really want to know because, trust me you don't. It's not for newspaper or Internet worthy," Poulter said when asked what he was thinking after the sixth hole. "I was in cruise control, shall we say, not making bad swings. I was in position a lot. You take your foot off the accelerator for one second, all of a sudden, you find yourself completely out of position making an easy double bogey."

Poulter came right back with a birdie on the seventh hole and is at 7 under with Casey, who lost in a playoff last week in the Northern Trust Open. He is back on the mend after multiple injuries stifled his career and is looking for his first win on American soil since 2009. He fired a 68 in round three and then fired a 4-under 31 on the front nine before play was halted.

"This sort of situation is going to be difficult for everybody, and it just breaks up momentum. Some guys will carry it through tomorrow. Others won't and that's very difficult to predict," Casey said. "I've done this before. And you just hope you wake up tomorrow and you feel like you've got the same kind of golf swing and the putts are going in the hole."

Reed may not be a top-5 player but he'll be trying for his fifth win in 18 months, including his second of the year. He shot 70 in the third round and was even through seven holes of the final round.

Mickelson hasn't won since the 2013 British Open but has been putting well this week. He shot 69 in the third round and was 1 under through eight holes of the final round. He's grouped with rookie Daniel Berger, Brendan Steele, Jeff Overton and Russell Knox at 4 under.

"The best position is leading, obviously, but there's a lot of golf left in nine holes, and I think we're all getting a little bit tired coming down the last few holes," Mickelson said. "So hopefully we'll get rested and have a little stretch. We need to get one hot streak of three, four birdies there on that back nine."

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