Calgary – Yakima, Washington’s Brock Mackenzie ran away from the field with a final round 6-under 66 at Sirocco Golf Club on Sunday to capture the ATB Financial Classic, his second career PGA TOUR Canada win.

The 33-year old set the 72-hole scoring record for the PGA TOUR Canada era at 27-under 261 and moved to No. 3 on the Order of Merit, in position to earn Web.com Tour status at the end of the season.

“To be able to play this way, I’m so happy with myself that I was able to execute and do what I did,” said Mackenzie, who won by four shots over Order of Merit leader Joel Dahmen of Clarkston, Washington and Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Stephen Carney. “Winning out here provides a huge step for next year. The perks of winning and what comes with that is even more special.”

Mackenzie began the day with a two-shot lead over Milford, Iowa’s Brady Schnell, who carded a 59 on Friday, and Carney, but pulled away with a stead opening nine of 4-under 32. Despite some low scores from his chasers, including a 64 from Dahmen, Mackenzie pulled away from the field and didn’t let any of his pursuers have a chance to catch him.

“I tried to make it almost impossible for those guys to do anything,” said Mackenzie, who also won on PGA TOUR Canada at the 2010 Bayview Place Island Savings Open presented by Times Colonist. “If they made a birdie, I made a birdie on top of them. That’s just kind of the way it was all day.”

“I limited the mistakes,” added the University of Washington alum, who said his solid ballstriking allowed him to keep the field at bay. “I was in play all the time and had good looks at birdies on almost every hole. I just didn’t make the mistakes that almost every other guy did.”

Despite the lead, which grew to as many as five shots after his seventh birdie of the day at the 14^th, Mackenzie said he never felt completely comfortable until the 18^th hole, where he made his 30^th birdie of the week to close the victory in style.

“I think I hit almost every fairway until the last couple of holes, and I still didn’t feel like I could breathe until I got into the fairway on 18 and hit the shot onto the green. Then, I was like ‘This is cool,’” said Mackenzie. “Those guys were firing birdies at me left and right. I never really felt that comfortable, and I was doing everything I needed to.”

The event will go down as a historic one, wiith Mackenzie’s 27-under par total setting the mark for lowest score to par since the launch of PGA TOUR Canada in 2013. Only one player in Tour history has ever gone deeper, with Brian Unk’s 28-under total at the 2009 Seaforth Country Classic holding the all-time mark.

“I honestly didn’t expect to shoot 27-under at the beginning of the week. On this Tour, 16-under’s usually a pretty good score; I don’t even know if that got in the top 15 this week [note: 16-under would have been solo 15^th]. I just had to keep the pedal to the metal, as they say, and it went my way.”

With a final round 64, Dahmen increased his commanding Order of Merit lead to $21,920 over second place Tim Madigan, while Carney’s career-best T2 finish moved him up 111 spots to 20^th. Victoria, British Columbia’s Cory Renfrew carded a final round 5-under 67, including a near hole-in-one on the par-4 11^th with a drive that finished inside a foot from the hole, to finish tied for fourth at 22-under along with Schnell.

At three-over par through seven holes, Airdrie, Alberta’s Riley Fleming was far from thinking he might set a PGA TOUR Canada era record on Sunday. A wild run that saw him play has final 11 holes in 11-under par changed his perspective dramatically, however, with his 8-under 28 on the back nine giving him the lowest nine holes of the PGA TOUR Canada era.

“The first seven, I couldn’t do anything right. Nothing was going my way. Then, I eagled eight and birdied nine to shoot even, and then everything was going in and the hole was looking like a bucket,” said Fleming, the youngest member on PGA TOUR Canada this season. From the eighth hole onward, Fleming went eagle-birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie-par-birdie-birdie-par-birdie and finished with an 8-under 64 to finish tied for 13^th.

“It was easy,” Fleming said of his round. “It was just crazy golf. You just try to keep making birdies. My caddie and I were like, ‘Let’s just get two more. Then, okay let’s get two more. Then, okay, let’s birdie 18.”

Fleming now sits 39^th on the Order of Merit, with his best finish a tie for seventh at the SIGA Dakota Dunes Open presented by Sasktel.

With a final round 5-under 67, Victoria, British Columbia’s Cory Renfrew finished in a tie for fourth at 22-under to earn Freedom 55 Financial Canadian Player of the Week Honours.

Renfrew, who earned a $1,500 prize, edged out Peterborough, Ontario’s Ted Brown by a shot, two weeks after Brown won over Renfrew in a tiebreaker to take the award at the Staal Foundation Open presented by Tbaytel.

Each week, Freedom 55 Financial recognizes the top Canadian on the leaderboard, with the top Canadian on the Order of Merit at season’s end earning Freedom 55 Financial Canadian Player of the Week.

In the final round of the 2014 World Golf Championships – Bridgestone Invitational, Sergio Garcia’s tee shot hits a spectator causing her to lose her diamond from her ring on the par-4 3rd hole…

Don’t worry folks, the diamond was found shortly afterwards. And, how great was Sergio? I have no doubt he would have replaced it for her if it was lost.

AKRON, Ohio – From links of Britain to the parkland of America, Rory McIlroy is on top of the world again.

In his first start since a wire-to-wire win at the British Open, McIlroy wiped out a three-shot deficit in only three holes and closed with a 4-under 66 on Sunday to win the Bridgestone Invitational and return to No. 1 in the world.

And just like at Royal Liverpool two weeks ago, Boy Wonder made it look easy.

Sergio Garcia had a three-shot lead going into the final round at Firestone. McIlroy fired off three straight birdies and already had the lead when he stood on the fourth tee. He took over the lead for good with an 8-foot birdie putt on the 11th hole, got some breathing room when Garcia made bogey on the 15th hole, and the 25-year-old from Northern Ireland cruised home to a two-shot victory.

Garcia closed with a 71, though his runner-up finish was enough to move him to No. 3 in the world.

McIlroy became the 13th player with a major and a World Golf Championship, and joined Tiger Woods as the only players to win them in consecutive starts.

Woods wasn’t around to see it.

Just four months after back surgery, and in his third tournament since his return, Woods injured his lower back when he landed with a thud in the stand from an awkward stance atop a bunker on the second hole. He withdrew after a tee shot on the ninth hole, bending over slowly and struggling to remove the tee from the ground.

It was not clear Woods could play in the PGA Championship next week.

McIlroy heads south to Valhalla with a full head of steam. After a brief celebration with the claret jug, he was determined to move forward and chase more titles over the final four months of the year. He backed it up with a powerful performance on a soggy Firestone course to take the top spot in the world from Adam Scott.

McIlroy finished at 15-under 265 and won $1.4 million, leaving him $765 short of Bubba Watson on the PGA Tour money list.

More important was the world ranking.

He lost the No. 1 position in March 2013 when his game was in a downward spiral as he was adjusting to a new equipment deal and going through another management change. But since winning the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth at May, his game looks as strong as ever.

“It feels like a long time since I lost that No. 1 spot, but it feels good to be back on top,” McIlroy said. “Hopefully, I can keep it for a while.”

Garcia was a runner-up to McIlroy for the second straight time.

The Spaniard had the daunting task of making up a seven-shot deficit at the British Open, and Garcia put up a great fight until finishing two shots behind at Hoylake. Staked to at three-shot lead at Firestone, it didn’t go much better.

Garcia missed a 6-foot birdie on the par-5 second hole with a putt that never looked as if it was going in. His lead down to one, Garcia pulled his tee shot into the gallery on the third hole, striking a woman on the hand and knocking the diamond out of her ring. The diamond was found, about the lone bright spot in his day. Garcia made bogey, and McIlroy rolled in another birdie putt to take the lead.

They were tied at the turn when Garcia made a 15-foot putt for his only birdie of the day, and McIlroy missed from 6 feet. But two holes later, with both players about 8 feet away for birdie, McIlroy made and Garcia missed, and the Spaniard never caught up.

Marc Leishman (67) finished alone in third.

Patrick Reed holed out for eagle on No. 17 in his round of 65 and gave him a tie for fourth, enough to move him up to No. 7 in the Ryder Cup standings and boost his hopes of making his first team with only the PGA Championship left in the qualifying period.

Phil Mickelson made 10 birdies for a career-best 62 at Firestone.

None of that could top McIlroy, who put on another exhibition with his driver that made Firestone look like child’s play.

“It’s the foundation of my game when I drive it like that,” McIlroy said. “I have a pretty good chance to win most weeks, and I’ve shown that the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, going into Valhalla in good form and I’ll try to get three in a row.”

BLAINE, Minn. – Kenny Perry got the “warmup” he was looking for heading into the PGA Championship in his home state of Kentucky.

Capped by a 15-foot putt, Perry scrambled for a birdie on the 18th hole Sunday to beat hard-charging Bernhard Langer by a stroke in the Champions Tour’s 3M Championship.

The 53-year-old Perry closed with a 7-under 65 for his second victory of the year and seventh overall on the 50-and-over tour. He finished at 23-under 193 at TPC Twin Cities.

“This was a warmup week for me to work on my short game,” Perry said. “From 100 yards and in this week I was better than I ever can remember in my career. I was hitting it around the pin and I was converting. I was making putts.”

But, to be successful at Valhalla, Perry knows he’ll have to drive it exceptionally well and successfully hit his hybrids.

“It’s going to be a great challenge,” Perry said. “Hopefully, I can carry some of this momentum over.”

Perry lost a playoff to Mark Brooks in the 1996 PGA at Valhalla, and helped the United States win the 2008 Ryder Cup at the course.

Langer, the Senior British Open winner last week by a tour-record 13 shots, shot 63. He overcame a four-shot deficit on the back nine and was tied with Perry going to the par-5 18th.

In the second-to-last group, Langer’s second shot just cleared the water hazard and landed in the tall grass. He chipped on from an awkward stance and two-putted for par.

“My goal today was to shoot 8 under thinking 21 under should have a chance to win. I shot 9 under, outdid myself, and still didn’t win,” he said. “What Kenny did this week is pretty exceptional.”

One group behind, Perry hit his second shot into the grandstand behind the green. After a drop, he pitched to about 15 feet and made the putt.

“It was an easy putt for me,” he said. “I don’t always make them, but I feel like I should make them and I knocked it right in the middle.”

Jeff Maggert, Gene Sauers and Marco Dawson tied for third at 20 under. Maggert and Sauers shot 65, and Dawson had a 67.

It was the eighth straight year the tournament’s winning score was at least 15 under, including three totals of better than 20 under. David Frost set the record at 25-under 191 in 2010. The scoring average of 69.609 is the lowest in the tournament’s 22-year history.

Perry, who also won the Regions Tradition in May, birdied four of six holes around the turn for a four-shot lead over Langer, Maggert, Dawson and Sauers.

But Langer, who won the event in 2009 and 2012, birdied five of the first six holes on the back nine, including a lengthy putt on No. 14, to get within one.

“I was just trying to make birdies, just trying to go deeper and deeper,” Langer said. “I looked at the leaderboard somewhere around the eighth hole and saw that I was four behind or whatever and I figured I got to go really low here if I want to have any hope.”

A birdie putt at 17 moved Langer into a tie less than a minute before Perry, who hadn’t been scoreboard watching on the back nine, made a par putt on No. 16.

“I was just cruising, thinking pars were good. I’m thinking if I par in it’s over, and then I look up on 17 and we’re tied,” said Perry, who finished second, third and seventh in the event the past three years.

He began the day with a one-stroke lead over Dawson. While Perry birdied Nos. 7 and 8 and made par on the par-4 ninth, Dawson went par-par-bogey to give Perry a three-shot cushion. Dawson’s tee shot on No. 9 found the weeds, forcing him to hit back into the fairway on his second shot.

Sixty-nine-year-old Hale Irwin bettered his age for the third straight day with a 68 to tie for ninth at 14 under. The last player to better his age three times in an event was Gary Player at the 2009 Mitsubishi Electric Championship.

Wes Short Jr., who shot a 62 to miss the course record by a stroke, matched Irwin at 14 under.

Rob Spittle was the top Canadian, going 12-under to claim a top 20 finish. Jim Rutledge finished at 3-under to tie for 57th.

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Veronica Felibert shot a 6-under 65 on Sunday to earn her first career Symetra Tour victory at the Credit Union Classic presented by Wegmans.  Felibert birdied three of her final four holes to seize control and win by three strokes over Lindy Duncan.

“Oh my god, I’m very, very happy,” said 29-year-old Felibert.  “I’ve been working very hard and it is finally clicking so I am very, very excited.”

Felibert made birdie on the 15^th hole to take a one shot lead over Garrett Phillips, who was one group in front.  Felibert made par on the 16^th hole while Phillips made birdie to momentarily move into a share of the lead.  Then, Felibert made a long birdie putt on the 17^th hole to take a one shot lead.

Phillips made double bogey on the 18^th hole to give Felibert breathing room.  Felibert calmly stuck a stock 9-iron to three feet and tapped in for birdie to win on 18.

“The whole day was a little up-and-down, I shot 6-under with two three-putts.  I missed some short ones, but I kept believing in myself and even on the long putts I was trying to make them and it actually happened.”

After making the long putt on the 17^th hole, Felibert felt destined to hoist the trophy.

“On 17, when I made the long putt, I had the feeling that when something is for you, it is for you.  It was meant for me at that point and nobody was going to take it.  Then, I hit my driver right down the middle on 18 and had perfect yardage to the pin and I hit a soft 9-iron and it just felt great.”

Felibert has played in 43 career Symetra Tour events over the last five years and was waiting desperately for this moment.

“I’m probably going to cry later because I know myself and this means a lot.  If you are a player or work on the Tour, you know I work very hard and being out here for so many years makes me realize I still haven’t been able to win and I feel so capable.  This is very special and I am just so happy.”

The winner’s payout of $15,000 moves her from 42^nd on the Volvik Race for the Card money list to 11^th with $27,941.  Felibert is off to play in the Meijer LPGA Classic presented by Kraft this coming week.  Now that she is on the cusp of the top-10 on the money list, she is going to reconsider her plans for the remainder of the season.

“I have to check if my schedule is going to change.  I’ve been trying to play as many LPGA Tour events as I get in and if I get a week off then I play Symetra Tour.  A lot will depend on what I do next week on the LPGA Tour.”

Most of Felibert’s family lives back in Caracas, Venezuela.  However, her friend from Brooklyn, New York took the train up to caddie for her this weekend.

“At least I had a friend that came from New York City on Friday night.  I picked him up at the train station and the train was late, it didn’t come until 11:00 p.m.  It was just very special to have him there and to have someone that I could talk to was pretty cool.”

Felibert had numerous people she wanted to share the win with that were not able to be in Syracuse.

“This is the best golf moment of my life and I want to share it with so many people that aren’t here like my parents, my sisters, my nephews and my coach, who has been so helpful to me over the last two years, and my sponsor arteasan.”

Lindy Duncan shot a bogey-free 5-under 66 to finish in solo second.  Her performance moved her from 29^th on the Volvik Race for the Card money list to 16^th.

Duncan made just one bogey over the final two days.

Numa Gulyanamitta, Calle Nielson and Garrett Phillips finished in a tie for third at 8-under 205.

On the Canadian side, Samantha Richdale claimed a top 10 5-under finish with a 67 in the final round. Maude-Aimee Leblanc  finished just behind her in a tie for 13th, after carding a final round 69.

RENO, Nev. – Geoff Ogilvy won the Barracuda Championship on Sunday for his eighth PGA Tour title and first since 2010, scoring five points with an eagle on the par-5 13th and pulling away for a five-point victory in the modified Stableford event.

Players received eight points for double eagle, five for eagle, two for birdie, zero for par, minus-one for bogey and minus-three for double bogey or worse.

Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open winner, added birdies on the par-4 14th and par-5 18th to finish with 49 points. He had 14 points in the final round with the eagle, five birdies and a bogey.

The 37-year-old Australian was making his first appearance at Montreux since 2002 after failing to qualify for the World Golf Championship-Bridgestone Invitational. He entered the week with only two top-25 finishes this season and was 151st in the FedEx Cup standings.

He earned $540,000 and a spot next week in the PGA Championship at Valhalla in Louisville, Kentucky.

Justin Hicks was second at 44 points after an 18-point day.

John Huh and Jonathan Byrd tied for third at 37. They each had 11-point rounds.

Nick Watney, three points behind Ogilvy entering the final day after leading after each of the first two rounds, tied for eighth at 34 points. He had three birdies and four bogey in a two-point round.

Ogilvy had 14 points in the first round, 16 in the second and seven in the third.

Canada’s Miek Weir finished tied for 69th with 14 points.

AKRON, Ohio – Tiger Woods was at Firestone, and the scene looked all too familiar.

Except he wasn’t hoisting a trophy.

He could barely bend over to pick up his tee.

Right when Woods thought he was making small progress toward his return from back surgery, he suffered a scary setback Sunday when he was stricken with more back pain and withdrew after eight holes from the Bridgestone Invitational.

How bad was it? Woods headed home to Florida to find out if he could play the PGA Championship this week.

But as he stood next to his car, he struggled to even take off his golf shoes before his caddie drove him away into an uncertain future.

The lasting images of Woods at Firestone were not of him winning, like he did last year for the eighth time. They were of Woods wincing, hobbling and twitching. Those were the scenes from earlier this year when he coped with recurring back pain that forced him to withdraw from the Honda Classic and eventually led to back surgery March 31.

In his third tournament since returning from surgery, this had the look of a serious setback.

Woods injured himself playing a shot from edge of a bunker on the par-5 second hole. With all weight on his right leg, he took an awkward slash at the ball, fell back toward the sand and landed with a thud, and kept jogging out of the bunker from sheer momentum of the steep drop.

“I just jarred it, and it’s been spasming ever since,” Woods told a PGA Tour official before leaving.

Woods kept playing, hitting a number of shockingly bad shots. He hit one into the water from the fairway on No. 3, coming up some 30 yards short of the flag. And on the par-3 fifth hole, his tee shot was 65 yards short of the hole. From a bunker left of the seventh green, he blasted out and back into the fairway and made double bogey.

He grimaced at impact when he hit a 315-yard drive into the left rough on No. 9. Woods slowly stooped over with his right hand on his leg, reached toward his back and slowly bent down to remove the tee from the ground. Moments later, he stepped into a cart and headed for the parking lot.

“It’s just the whole lower back,” Woods said. “I don’t know what happened.”

Masters champion Bubba Watson said he didn’t see Woods hit the shot that hurt him on No. 2, though he could tell as the round went on that something wasn’t right.

“He hit some shots that we’re not used to seeing Tiger hit, even when he’s coming back from an injury like this,” Watson said. “So obviously, something was bothering him. … Like I told him when I shook his hand, I said, `I’m praying for you. Hope everything turns out good. Hope to see you next week.'”

With the pain he showed leaving the course – and just four months removed from back surgery – it would seem unlikely that Woods plays next week at Valhalla, where he won the PGA Championship in 2000. Woods is scheduled to play the opening two rounds with Phil Mickelson and Padraig Harrington.

Mickelson was on the 11th hole – not far away from No. 9 – when he noticed Woods leaving.

“It didn’t look good. It looked like he was really in pain,” Mickelson said. “I hope he’s OK. I hope he’s able to play next week. I hope it’s a muscle and nothing serious because I’m really looking forward to playing with him. We rarely get paired together. If we do, it’s been early Saturday.

“As much as I love playing with him, playing against him, trying to beat him, we all want him in the field. We all want him back. I just hope he’s OK.”

If Woods does not play in the PGA Championship, that would be the end of his season. He would have to win the PGA to be eligible for the FedEx Cup playoffs. In six starts on the PGA Tour this year, Woods finished all four rounds only twice.

Woods had back surgery to alleviate an impinged nerve, forcing him to miss the Masters for the first time and the U.S. Open. He returned after three months to Congressional – three weeks ahead of his own schedule – and reported no pain in missing the cut by four shots at the Quicken Loans National. He also reported no pain in four rounds at the British Open. He finished 69th, 23 shots out of the lead, his worst 72-hole result in a major.

And now with another injury, Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson might have an even more difficult time picking him for the American team. The captain has said he wants Woods on the team if he was healthy and playing well.

Woods was doing neither.

BLAINE, Minn. – Kenny Perry eagled the last hole after waiting out a thunderstorm to take a one-shot lead Saturday after the second round of the Champions Tour’s 3M Championship.

Perry shot a 9-under 63 to reach 16-under 128 at TPC Twin Cities.

The six-time senior winner birdied the par-3 17th and was on the green on the par-5 18th when play was stopped for the thunderstorm. After a two-hour delay, he made the 8-foot eagle putt.

First-round leader Marco Dawson was second after a 66.

Bernhard Langer, Gary Hallberg, Jeff Maggert and Gene Sauers were 13 under. Langer, coming off a record-breaking victory in the Senior British Open, and Maggert shot 67, and Hallberg and Sauers had 65s.

Dawson and Maggert were in the 18th fairway when play stopped. When play resumed, Dawson put a 5-iron pin high to set up an eagle, but Maggert – tied for the lead at the time – hit his approach shot in the water en route to a bogey.

Two shots back to start the day, Perry was 3 under on the front nine and added birdies at Nos. 10 and 15 to pull into a tie for the lead.

Fifth in the season-long points race, Perry has been one of the more consistent tour players, finishing no worse than 14th – including four top-10s – in his last six events. That includes a major win May 18 at the Regions Tradition.

Maggert, who started the day one shot back, bogeyed the first hole to fall to 7 under, before birdies on Nos. 3 and 4. Starting on No. 7, he birdied five of six holes to take a two-shot lead at 14 under, but promptly gave a shot back with a bogey on the par-4 14th.

Dawson tied for the lead with a birdie on the 318-yard par-4 seventh after he drove the green and two-putted. However, he didn’t get another birdie until No. 16.

Langer, who won the event in 2009 and 2012 and took the Senior British Open by a tour-record 13 strokes last week, was 3 under on the front, but had just two birdies on the back nine.

Canada’s Rod Spittle is tied for 16th after carding a 5-under 67 on Saturday.

AKRON, Ohio – Sergio Garcia was in the trees left of the 18th fairway, looking through a gap in the branches to find a way out. Ahead of him was Rory McIlroy, giving his 35-foot birdie putt a little body English before it fell for birdie.

Garcia never lost command of the Bridgestone Invitational on Saturday, even after a storm delay of just over three hours. He started with a three-shot lead, stretched it to six shots at one point and closed with three good pars for a 3-under 67, three shots ahead of McIlroy.

The Spaniard just lost a small measure of comfort.

McIlroy, coming off a wire-to-wire win in the British Open, might be the last player anyone wants to see right behind.

“I’ve got to keep doing the same thing, make sure that I have good confidence in myself, that I play nicely, and then see what happens,” Garcia said. “If Rory comes out, or whoever is behind us comes out, and get crazy like I did on Friday, then it is what it is. But hopefully, I’ll be able to play well again and be all the way up there tomorrow.”

Garcia, who seized control with a career-best 61 on Friday, was at 14-under 196.

McIlroy birdied his last two holes for the second straight day for a 66, and he got his wish – a spot in the final group.

Sunday is set up as a replay of The Open – only with the roles reversed.

McIlroy had a six-shot lead going into the final round at Hoylake. Garcia, playing in the group ahead, made a spirited run at McIlroy and got within two shots late in the round until he faltered and Boy Wonder pulled away.

“Obviously, Rory is playing great, and we get along nicely as of right now,” Garcia said. “I think we’re both excited about it. We’re definitely going to play hard. It will be nice to see if I can do the same thing he did to me a couple of weeks ago. So we’ll see.”

This time, it’s McIlroy who has to chase.

“My goal today was to try and get in the final group,” McIlroy said. “Sergio didn’t quite have that luxury of seeing what I was doing on the last. It will be nice to play alongside him tomorrow and at least keep an eye on what’s going on. Try to apply a bit of pressure when I can, but just really looking forward to getting in there and having another chance to win a tournament so soon after what happened at Hoylake.”

Rickie Fowler also was in the hunt at Hoylake, though he took himself out of the picture on the final hole. He went from the left trees to a plugged lie in the bunker, having to brace his right good against the side of a hill. He left it in the bunker and wound up with a double bogey for a 72, putting him 10 shots behind.

This isn’t a two-man race for a World Golf Championship title.

Marc Leishman had a 68 and was five shots behind, while Adam Scott returned from the rain delay carrying only his long putter, the only weapon he needed to convert one last birdie for a 65 that at least left him with a slim chance. He was six shots behind, along with Keegan Bradley (68) and Justin Rose (70).

The race won’t feature defending champion Tiger Woods. The eight-time winner at Firestone made only one birdie on Saturday – he failed to birdie a par 5 for the second straight day – and shot 72. He was 15 shots behind.

Garcia, who won the Qatar Masters this year, has been building toward moments like this. Two weeks after his runner-up finish to McIlroy at Hoylake, the Spaniard has performed so solidly at Firestone that he went 37 consecutive holes without a bogey. Along with four birdies in 11 holes to start his third round, he built a six-shot lead for a brief moment until missing the 14th green long and failing to convert a 5-foot par putt.

Three pars at the end helped keep in front.

He pulled his lay-up shot on the par-5 16th into deep rough, which felt even thicker after the rain delay. Garcia managed to judge it perfectly to clear the water. He hooked his tee shot on the 17th hole and hit 8-iron safely onto the green. The biggest challenge was the 18th, where he had to clear trees with a shot from the rough. He opened up the face of a 7-iron to play a big cut with such elevation, and it cleared the back bunker, leaving him 75 feet away.

“Where I hit it, I couldn’t really do much more than that and hope to make a good two-putt,” he said.

He lagged it down to 5 feet, and lightly pumped his fist when it fell. Every shot matters, especially with someone like McIlroy right behind him.

“The one on 18 is the one that felt the best,” Garcia said, “because it was probably the toughest to make par.”

CALGARY – Yakima, Washington’s Brock Mackenzie carded six birdies and a bogey to shoot a 5-under 67 on Saturday at Sirocco Golf Club and build a two-shot lead heading into the final round of the ATB Financial Classic.

The 33-year old was 21-under through 54 holes, the lowest mark of the PGA TOUR Canada era and tied for the second lowest in Tour history. Mackenzie has made just one bogey on the week, offset by 22 birdies to lead by two over Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Stephen Carney and Milford, Iowa’s Brady Schnell, who followed up a second round 59 with a 67 on Saturday.

“Any time you’re leading, you want to try and distance yourself as much as you can so there’s only a few guys who can win the tournament,” said Mackenzie, a veteran of the Web.com Tour and PGA TOUR Canada. “That’s what I was trying to do today. So many guys played well, and it’s a course where you can make lots of birdies, so anyone within eight shots could win.”

Mackenzie owns one win on PGA TOUR Canada, coming at the 2010 Bayview Place Island Savings Open presented by Times Colonist, and says he’s relishing the opportunity to be in contention for a second win tomorrow in Calgary.

“I love being in contention,” said Mackenzie. “I’ve been in contention a couple of times this year. I’m getting more and more comfortable being in that position. It’s just another round of golf and I’m doing the things that I need to do.”

The University of Washington alumnus, who won twice on the All-American Gateway Tour in the offseason, was in the hunt earlier this year in Victoria before finishing tied for second. Currently 10^th on the Order of Merit, he’ll have a great chance to solidify his spot in the race to earn Web.com Tour status at season’s end.

“I did what I needed to do today,” Mackenzie said. “It’s going to be a fun day tomorrow. The first three rounds of golf, I couldn’t be more pleased with how I’ve played and hopefully I can handle myself too.”

Mackenzie’s closest pursuers on Sunday will be able to keep a close eye on the 54-hole leader, with round four tee times moved up to due anticipated inclement weather. Players will tee off the 1^st and 10^th tees in threesomes, and Mackenzie will be joined by Carney and Schnell in the final group. Mackenzie said he was pleased to be ahead of golf’s latest ‘Mr. 59’ given the historic accomplishment.

“The fact that I’m leading a guy who shot 59 on me, that makes me happy,” said Mackenzie. “But he could very likely do it again tomorrow and win by six. Most of the guys inside the top-10 have that ability to go low, and I guarantee that they’re going to be full charge ahead with nothing to lose.”

Two shots behind Schnell and Carney in solo fourth was Victoria, British Columbia’s Cory Renfrew, who posted the round of the day with a 7-under 65 to sit 17-under through three rounds.

SCHNELL RE-FOCUSES ON PURSUIT AFTER MAGIC FINISH
After he holed out from 122 yards on Friday to shoot 59, one could forgive Brady Schnell if he found it difficult to re-focus on the chase for the lead at the ATB Financial Classic on Saturday.

“It’s just going to be one of those things I’ll probably think about a few times over the course of my life. Those things don’t happen every day,” said Schnell.

The buzz of the accomplishment didn’t seem to distract Schnell, though, with the 29-year old continuing the strong play with five birdies on his first eight holes to reach 19-under, where he finished the day.

“I made a nice 12-footer on two to kind of get things going, and it’s always nice to get that first one under your belt, especially after a round like that,” said Schnell. “To be 5-under through eight, I was very happy to keep things rolling.”