MARANA, Ariz. – The weekend arrives at the Match Play Championship along with the usual assortment of surprises.

Only this year, the surprise is not who.

It’s how.

Graeme McDowell has defied all logic at a fickle tournament that never had much of it in the first place. How else to explain how a player can go 58 holes without once having the lead while any of his rounds were in progress and yet still win all three matches?

“You might win one of those three matches,” McDowell said. “You don’t win all three of them. It just doesn’t happen.”

But it did.

He was 3 down with three holes to play against Gary Woodland in the opening round and won the next four holes. He was 2 down with four holes to play against Hideki Matsuyama and won on the 18th hole. And on Friday, he was 2 down to Hunter Mahan and still managed to win. McDowell made a 10-foot slider for par on the 17th (Mahan missed from 8 feet on the same line), he birdied the 18th from 6 feet, made a 20-foot par putt on the 20th hole to extend the match and won in 21 holes with a birdie.

“Nine lives have been used up – and then some,” McDowell said.

And then there’s Ernie Els, the Big Easy who has had the toughest time at the Golf Club of Dove Mountain. Els has made nine birdies all week, which is one fewer than Jordan Spieth had in one round. Els is 5-over par for the week. Factoring the conceded putts, he has rounds of 75-73-73.

He’s still playing, facing Spieth on Saturday.

“Every match has been like that, you know?” Els said after a 1-up win over PGA champion Jason Dufner. “I’ve been playing a little ‘C’ golf and hanging in there. At the end, I’m hitting good shots when it counts.”

And ultimately, winning is all that counts.

Jason Day at No. 8 is the top seed remaining. Rickie Fowler at No. 53 is on the other end of the spectrum. The good news for Fowler is that winning three matches _ after coming into this event having missed the last three cuts _ assured he will move into the top 50 in the world and play the next World Golf Championship in two weeks at Doral. That one is stroke play, with a little more sanity.

Here is how the quarterfinals shape up for Saturday.

Day needed 40 holes to win his opening two matches. He had far less trouble against George Coetzee of South Africa, winning on the 17th hole. Next up for Day is Louis Oosthuizen, the South African with the dream swing. Oosthuizen is among the best in the world when he’s healthy and on his game, and he was both of those on Friday in a 5-and-4 win over Webb Simpson. It was the shortest match of the day.

Spieth, the 20-year-old whose future appears as bright as the noon sun in his native Texas, had 10 birdies on his card when he dispatched of defending champion Matt Kuchar. He rolled in a 10-footer on the last hole for a 2-and-1 victory. Now he faces Els, who won the first of his four majors less than a year after Spieth was born. Els has looked scrappy, but it’s amazing how much can change from one day to the next. Els will be trying to make the semifinals for the first time since 2001, when the Match Play was held in Australia.

Jim Furyk is the local favourite, having played college golf in Arizona. He had to work extra hard to take down Harris English. When it looked like Furyk would close it out on the 17th with a shot into 6 feet, English stuffed it to 6 feet and matched birdies. Furyk won on the 18th hole and now plays Fowler, a 1-up winner of Sergio Garcia.

This match featured the strangest development.

Garcia received a free drop because of bees around his ball on the sixth hole, a ruling that took forever. On the next hole, he felt it was unfair for Fowler to have to wait that long in match play. Garcia had 7 feet for par, Fowler had 18 feet for par. Garcia offered to halve the hole because he thought that was fair. Watch the video recap below.

Would he have done that in the Ryder Cup? Doubtful. But he felt good for himself, and he won the next hole.

Fowler won the next three holes, however, stayed in the match when Garcia missed short putts and took him out with a birdie on the 18th hole.

The final match Saturday is McDowell against Victor Dubuisson of France, who took down Bubba Watson, 1 up.

How fitting.

McDowell has never led in any of his three matches until he won them. Dubuisson has never trailed.

Expect anything.

MARANA, Ariz. – Getting to the round of 16 in the Match Play Championship was all that mattered Thursday.

Jordan Spieth made it look like child’s play. Graeme McDowell aged another 10 years with another stunning escape. And it proved too difficult for Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy, who lost in extra holes on another wild day at Dove Mountain.

“I thought I was dead and buried both days,” McDowell said.

One day after he rallied from 3 down with three holes to play to win in overtime, McDowell was two holes behind on the 15th tee when he made an 8-foot birdie, halved the next hole with a 10-foot par, won the 17th with a birdie and then holed a 6-foot par putt on the 18th for a 1-up win over Hideki Matsuyama of Japan.

In two matches, McDowell has stood on the tee with his match all square only four times – and two of those were at the start of the match.

Jason Day already has played 40 holes in two rounds. He won a tough match against Thorbjorn Olesen in the opening round, then rallied from 3 down early in his match against Billy Horschel and beat him 22 holes.

“Doesn’t matter how you get it done,” Day said. “Find a way to win.”

The top seeds lost their way.

Stenson, the No. 1 seed, fell behind early against Louis Oosthuizen and never caught up in a 4-and-3 loss. It was the sixth straight year, dating to Tiger Woods winning the Accenture Match Play Championship in 2008, that the top seed failed to make it out of the second round.

Rose (No. 2) and McIlroy (No. 4) followed him.

In one of the best matches of the day, Ernie Els poured in one clutch putt after another to stay in the match, and then beat the reigning U.S. Open champion. Els got up-and-down on the 18th hole by making a 6-foot par putt. Els and Rose both made 10-foot birdie putts on the 19th hole, and then Els finally got a break to go his way in a format that has haunted him over the years.

His approach settled on the slope of the bunker’s collar, and while the shot didn’t go as planned, it was close to perfect.

“It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime shots, really,” Els said. “I caught it a smidgen thin, and it just came out perfectly. It hit the bank and just trickled over to about 4 feet. It was an impossible shot, but it was obviously the right one at the time.”

Rose left his shot in the bunker.

McIlroy had his hands full against English, who has two PGA Tour wins in the last nine months. Boy Wonder managed a strong comeback, however, winning three straight holes for a 1-up lead with two to play. English responded with a 20-foot birdie putt to square the match, and off they went to overtime.

McIlroy went from the left rough to the desert on the 19th hole, and his only hope was to play an explosion shot that came off perfectly. It didn’t, sailing over the green by the television tower. He made double bogey and was headed home to Florida, though hardly depressed.

“He played really solid today and didn’t really do much wrong, didn’t really give me anything,” McIlroy said. “I don’t feel in any way disappointed leaving so early because I feel like my game is there. I’m looking forward to the next couple of weeks.”

Sergio Garcia at No. 5 is now the top seed remaining after his 3-and-1 victory over Bill Haas. Next up for Garcia is Rickie Fowler, who is finding this format to his liking. Coming off three straight missed cuts, Fowler outlasted one of golf’s hottest players, Jimmy Walker, in 18 holes.

Kuchar had a 1-up victory over Ryan Moore in a match so close that 15 of the 18 holes were halved. Kuchar, the defending champion and a former U.S. Amateur winner, improved to 17-3 in this tournament. Hunter Mahan didn’t take his first lead until the 17th hole in a 2-up win over Richard Sterne of South Africa.

Kuchar and Mahan are the only players to reach the third round in each of the last four years.

Next up for Kuchar is Spieth, who has been a factor in four of the five tournaments he has played this year. Mahan faces McDowell, which prompted one British writer to jokingly ask McDowell if they had ever played each other.

McDowell beat Mahan in the final match of the Ryder Cup four years ago in Wales, making a 15-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole.

MARANA, Ariz. – Graeme McDowell pulled off the biggest stunner on a day of comebacks in the Match Play Championship.

McDowell won the last three holes against Gary Woodland to force extra holes, and then beat him with a 6-foot birdie on the 19th hole on Wednesday. It was a classic case of this fickle event providing hope even when it appears to be hopeless.

Jason Dufner also escaped against Scott Stallings. The PGA champion rallied from 3 down with five holes to play to beat Stallings with a par in 19 holes.

Patrick Reed defeated Canada’s Graham DeLaet 1-up. The Weyburn, Sask. native was 2-up thru 6 holes, but bogeys on No.’s 7, 12 and 17 proved to be too much of a hurdle to overcome.

After the loss he took to Twitter for some jovial banter.

“@DUSTYTROUT: @GrahamDeLaet cost me a #proline commmmme onnnnn you owe me $5 #thanks” It cost me a hell of a lot more than that…

— Graham DeLaet (@GrahamDeLaet) February 19, 2014

In other matches:

– Harris English made his Match Play Championship debut with a 5-and-3 win over Lee Westwood.

– Billy Horschel made six birdies in 13 holes to beat Jamie Donaldson of Wales, 6 and 5, in the shortest match of the day.

– Rickie Fowler, coming off three straight missed cuts, caught Ian Poulter on a bad day and sent the Ryder Cup star packing with a 2-and-1 victory. “It feels like a big win after those missed cuts,” Fowler said. “It was nice to be the underdog. I had nothing to lose.”

– Bubba Watson was giving holes away early before winning three straight holes on the back nine in a 2-and-1 win over Mikko Ilonen of Finland.

– Henrik Stenson was in a battle with Kiradech Aphibarnrat of Thailand and won 2&1. Stenson avoided becoming the third straight No. 1 seed to lose in the opening round.

Video Recap:

Vijay Singh received a favorable ruling in his lawsuit against the PGA Tour when a judge allowed his complaint that he was treated differently from other players under the tour’s anti-doping policy.

The New York State Supreme Court only partially dismissed the lawsuit, meaning the case could be headed for trial.

The tour announced a year ago that Singh would be suspended for saying in a Sports Illustrated story that he took deer antler spray, which was believed to contain the banned substance IGF-1.

Late in the appeals process, the tour dropped the case when the World Anti-Doping Agency said deer antler spray was no longer a concern.

Singh sued the tour in May – the day before The Players Championship – saying it exposed him to “public humiliation and ridicule” during the investigation.

In Tuesday’s order, Judge Eileen Bransten threw out five of seven elements in the tour’s motion to dismiss. Four of them effectively agreed with the tour’s argument that Singh had to abide by the anti-doping policy because he willingly signed up as a PGA Tour member.

Another part of the ruling rejected Singh’s claim of intentional emotional distress.

“This is a big win,” said Peter Ginsberg, an attorney for the Hall of Fame golfer from Fiji. “The cornerstone of our lawsuit is that the PGA Tour violated in covenant to treat Vijay fairly, and the court has allowed us to proceed with that claim.”

Asked if the tour or Singh had talked about a settlement, Ginsberg declined comment.

PGA Tour spokesman Ty Votaw said it does not comment on pending legal matters.

Along with ruling in favor of Singh on his allegations of fair treatment, the court sided with his complaint that the tour unfairly held $99,980 in PGA Tour earnings while the case was being investigated. Singh says his prize money was being held in escrow since the 2013 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, before he was informed of his suspension.

Most damaging for the tour in Tuesday’s ruling is the potential for Singh to demand evidence involving other players. Both sides already are battling over how much information the tour should hand over regarding its handling of other players.

“So far the tour has put up a road block and failed to produce anything,” Ginsberg said. “The court has made it clear that the PGA has to satisfy our requests. We’ll go through discovery, and we expect to go all the way through with this.”

The tour is the only major sports league in America that does not announce how it punishes its players for violations, such as bad conduct. Even when John Daly told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had been suspended for six months for his conduct, the tour would not confirm it.

The anti-doping policy requires the tour to announce when a player has been suspended for performance-enhancing drugs (but not which one). Doug Barron is the only player to have been suspended since the program began in July 2008. But the commissioner does not have to disclose any suspension for recreational drugs.

Even though Singh agreed to the anti-doping policy as a PGA Tour member, Bransten said Singh could proceed under the “good faith and fair dealing” because of his allegation that the tour was “reckless in its administration of the program.”

The tour had warned players about deer antler spray because it was believed to contain an insulin-like growth factor on the tour’s list of banned substances. It can only be detected through a blood test – the tour only tests urine samples.

But the admission of taking a banned substance constitutes a positive test under the tour’s anti-doping policy.

Singh’s lawyers have said the amount of IGF-1 in the spray is so diluted that it would be comparable to pouring a shot glass of bourbon in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and then drinking a shot from the pool water.

MARANA, Ariz. – Third-ranked Henrik Stenson is the top seed in the Match Play Championship with No. 1 Tiger Woods and No. 2 Adam Scott skipping the tournament.

Stenson will open Wednesday against Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat at The Ritz-Carlton at Dove Mountain. The No. 64 seed has beaten the No. 1 seed four times in the 14-year history of the event, including last year when Shane Lowry edged Rory McIlroy.

“It doesn’t really matter if you’re the No. 1 seed or if you’re No. 50,” Stenson said. “It’s going to be down to how you play and how you can get things working.”

The Swede won the World Golf Championships event in 2007 and was third in 2008, both down the road at The Gallery.

“I had two great years and then we changed courses,” Stenson said. “The record hasn’t quite been the same since. … We’ve been going home Wednesday afternoon every year since. I played poorly, once I was sick, and just haven’t got it going on this golf course.”

Last year, Stenson became the first player to sweep the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup and European Tour’s Race to Dubai. Playing through a right wrist injury, he won the Deutsche Bank Championship and Tour Championship in the FedEx Cup playoffs and took the European Tour’s season-ending World Tour Championship in Dubai.

“The wrist has been OK,” Stenson said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that it could be an issue at some point, too, in the season. But it’s been holding up pretty good to this first month of the year and practicing. But I don’t think it’s the last time I hear from it. But as of now, it feels all right.”

He’s making his first U.S. start of the year after playing three European Tour events in the Middle East, the last early this month in Dubai.

“I had two nice weeks in Orlando, seeing the kids, seeing the family, bit of practice,” Stenson said. “Just feeling like we could put the suitcase down and relax for a little bit. So that’s nice. I’m feeling a bit fresher than I did when I came back from Dubai.”

Stenson was the last foreign winner on the PGA Tour. Since his Tour Championship victory, U.S. players have won the first 13 events in the wraparound season.

OH CANADA : Canada’s Graham Delaet is seeded 6th. He squares off against America’s Patrick Reed, who pulled 11th ranking.

DeLaet is having a banner year, but struggled somewhat last week to a tie for 70th at the Northern Trust Open. Prior to last week, he had managed a top-10 finish in his previous five starts, dating back to October of last year.

Reed won the Humana Challenge in late January and has had two top-20 performances since.

SUNNY FORECAST: A year after snow covered the cactus-lined High Sonoran Desert course, warm, sunny conditions are expected.

“To have snow the last two or three years, my boys expect it when we come here,” defending champion Matt Kuchar said. “I think they’re still planning on it snowing. I think the rest of us are awfully happy to see proper Tucson weather.”

A high of 79 degrees with wind gusting to 20 mph in the afternoon was forecast for the first round Wednesday. On Thursday, the forecast high is 74 with wind up to 15 mph. On Friday through Sunday, it is expected to be in the upper 70s with light wind.

“I think the ball is going to be flying this year,” 2012 winner Hunter Mahan said. “Should be going pretty far, especially off the last two weeks playing basically at sea level.”

Last year, first-round play Wednesday was suspended when rain gave way to snow from a storm that dumped close to 2 inches and dropped the temperature to 33 degrees. More snow fell at night and play finally resumed Thursday afternoon. The 2011 championship match also was delayed by snow.

MANO A MANO: Bubba Watson is coming off a victory Sunday in the Northern Trust Open. He shot 64-64 on the weekend at Riviera.

“I can shoot 64 tomorrow and my playing partner shoots 63, so I played great, but I’m still a loser,” Watson said. “I’m going to go out there and keep the same things going. I’m really focused on what I’m doing right now, committed to each shot. I’m making some putts.”

Watson will open against Finland’s Mikko Ilonen.

“You’re not really looking at who it is you’re playing against,” Watson said. “You’re looking at his golf ball. You’re looking at what he’s making. … You’re not trying to kill the person. You’re trying to kill their score is what you’re really trying to do.”

WELL-RESTED WILDCAT: Jim Furyk is making his third straight start after playing only one event _ the World Challenge in December _ since the Tour Championship in September. The former University of Arizona player will open against McGladrey Classic winner Chris Kirk.

“I don’t know if I have expectations,” Furyk said. “Obviously I’d like to play well. I went to school here. I have a lot of support here. Match play is just a strange. It’s just strange for us to play. You can play pretty well and end up losing a match. You can play poorly and end up winning a match.”

Winless since the 2010 Tour Championship, he tied for 35th two weeks ago at Pebble Beach and tied for 23rd at Riviera on Sunday.

“I feel like I’ve played pretty well for my first two weeks back after a long break,” Furyk said. “I feel like there’s a few things I wanted to improve on. … I’ve had a couple of days here to work and improve.”

DIVOTS: The winner will receive $1.53 million from the $9 million purse. Second place is worth $906,000, third $630,000 and fourth $510,000. The quarterfinal losers will get $280,000, the third-round losers $148,000, the second-round losers $99,000 and the first-round losers $48,000. … Jimmy Walker, a three-time winner this season, is one of 19 newcomers in the 64-man field. … The United States has 27 players in the field, two more than Europe. … Jack Nicklaus designed The Ritz-Carlson course.

LOS ANGELES – Given another chance at winning, Bubba Watson wasn’t about to let this one get away.

Watson went the final 39 holes at Riviera without a bogey and closed with a 7-under 64 for a two-shot victory Sunday in the Northern Trust Open. It was his first victory since the 2012 Masters, a stretch of 41 tournaments worldwide.

Watson started the final round four shots behind and was simply flawless. His final birdie of a 64-64 weekend gave him the lowest closing round by a winner of this event since Doug Tewell’s 63 in 1986.

Dustin Johnson also played bogey-free, but it wasn’t enough. He closed with a 66 for the second straight tournament. Just like last week at Pebble Beach, he had to settle for second.

Graham DeLaet (70-73-72-73) finished in a tie for 70th at 4-over par. The Weyburn, Sask. native has not finished outside the top-10 since October of last year, when he missed the cut at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

LOS ANGELES – William McGirt made eight birdies in 13 holes and wound up with a 6-under 65 on Saturday in the Northern Trust Open for a two-shot lead going into the final round.

McGirt has never held a 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour. He had one close call when he was runner-up at the RBC Canadian Open two years ago. With steady play in calm conditions off Sunset Boulevard, he opened up a two-shot lead over George McNeill (66) and Charlie Beljan (68).

The leaderboard was about a crowded as the 405, even without half the lanes closed.

Jason Allred, who hasn’t played a PGA Tour event in more than three years and qualified for this event Monday, was three shots behind. Jimmy Walker and Jordan Spieth were among those four back.

Graham DeLaet shot a 1-over 72 on the day to slip one spot down the leaderboard into a tie for 69th. The Weyburn, Sask. native is 2-over par for the tourney.

LOS ANGELES – Sang-Moon Bae is off to another great start at the Northern Trust Open. The next step is a better finish.

Bae played bogey-free on another gorgeous day at Riviera for a 5-under 66, giving him a one-shot lead over Aaron Baddeley and Robert Garrigus when the second round was suspended by darkness.

Baddeley, who won at Riviera three years ago, birdied his last four holes for a 65. Garrigus had a 67.

Dustin Johnson, who led after the opening round at 5-under 66, opened with two birdies but never got any closer. He had a 70 and joined Jim Furyk (68) among those three shots behind.

Bae was at 9-under 133. He was tied for the lead last year going into the weekend at Riviera but fell from contention.

The three Canadians in the field all managed to finish their rounds become the horns were blown.

Graham DeLaet was 2-over for the day and is sitting on the cut line tied for 69th. The Weyburn, Sask. native has not missed a cut since October of last year at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. Since his last missed cut, DeLaet has cracked the top-10 in every PGA Tour event he’s entered.

Brantford, Ont.’s David Hearn is 3-over par and Mike Weir of Bright’s Grove, Ont. is 6-over. Both will not see weekend action in California.

LOS ANGELES – Dustin Johnson moved down the coast of California and brought his game with him Thursday in the Northern Trust Open.

Johnson made six birdies on a warm, sunny day at Riviera for a 5-under 66, giving him a one-shot lead among the early starters. Francesco Molinari of Italy and Torrey Pines winner Scott Stallings were among those at 67.

Johnson closed with a 66 in the grey, cold weather of Pebble Beach to finish one shot behind Jimmy Walker last week. In conditions that could not have been any different – certainly not any better – he made birdie on all of the par 5s and only had one bogey on his card at the long par-3 fourth.

The only comparison was the quality of his golf.

“It was cold, windy and wet at Pebble on Sunday. Here, it’s not a lot of wind and perfect conditions. It’s sunny and a really nice temperatures,” Johnson said. “It’s still golf, though. You’ve still got to adjust no matter what you’re doing.”

As glorious a day as it was off Sunset Boulevard, Riviera was firm and fast, particularly on the greens.

The warmth meant a little more distance, such as the 349-yard tee shot Johnson hammered down the middle of 13th fairway, a slight dogleg left framed by eucalyptus trees. That left him only 97 yards, and he stuffed it. And on the par-5 17th – 608 yards up the hill, no help from wind – he reached it in two and had a two-putt from just over 20 feet. His only glitch was coming up just short of the green and in the bunker on the 225-yard fourth.

Johnson isn’t playing a lot this season, but when he does, he plays well.

He already has a win at the HSBC Champions in Shanghai. He shared the 54-hole lead at Kapalua and tied for sixth, and then took off four weeks before returning at Pebble Beach. That was a good sign for Johnson, who said he doesn’t have a good history of playing well in the first event after a long break.

“This time, I stayed with it. I worked hard at home,” Johnson said. “It was tough at Pebble because of the weather, and it was hard to keep your concentration.”

He still regrets missing a short birdie putt on the 14th, but overall, he had no complaints.

Molinari started well with an ideal tee shot on the short but troublesome 10th hole – far left of the fairway, just short of a bunker, leaving an open angle to the green. He made par, which is satisfactory, and then picked up three birdies over his next six holes.

“The rough is not too punitive, but it’s a good advantage being on the green, and I hit a lot of good iron shots,” Molinari said.

Robert Garrigus, Charley Hoffman and Matt Jones also were at 67. Jim Furyk and Cameron Tringale were at 68 among the early starters.

Jordan Spieth was among those who played in the afternoon, in similar conditions except that Riviera was slightly faster and the air even warmer. He holed out from 125 yards on the seventh hole for eagle and made the turn at 3 under.

Spieth was playing with Fred Couples – the 20-year-old Texan was born a year after Couples won the Masters – and the old guy was holding his own. In his 32nd start at this tournament, he was 1 under at the turn.

The 10th hole was perilous as ever at 314 yards, especially for Scott Verplank. His wedge barely got the bunker in front of the green. His bunker shot went just over the back of the slick, narrow green into the back bunker. The next shot hit the lip and came back into his divot. His fifth shot reached the fringe and rolled back into the sand again. The next one went through the green and into the front bunker again. And then he got up-and-down for an 8.

“That was fun,” Verplank said.

The rest of the day wasn’t. The 49-year-old Verplank, who has been battling injuries the last few years, withdrew with a bad back.

Weyburn, Sask’s Graham DeLaet and Brantford, Ont.’s David Hearn were tied for 35th when play was called due to darkness Thursday. The pair competed their rounds 1 under par.

Mike Weir was a shot back after an even par 71 – he’s tied for 59th.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – The finish wasn’t what Jimmy Walker wanted. The result is what he’s come to expect.

Walker led by as many as six shots Sunday in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, only for it to be decided by his final putt. He ran his birdie attempt 5 feet by the hole and had to make that for par to close with a 2-over 74 and a one-shot win over Dustin Johnson and Jim Renner.

“It’s drama, man,” Walker said on the 18th green. “It was too much for me.”

But it was a familiar outcome for Walker, a 35-year-old Texan who only four months ago was regarded as one of the best players to have never won on the PGA Tour. This was his third win of the PGA Tour season, a streak that began in October about an hour away at the Frys.com Open.

Walker joined some exclusive company. He is only the fourth player in the last 20 years to win three times in his first eight starts to a season. The others are Tiger Woods (who has done it eight times), Phil Mickelson and David Duval.

For a brief moment, it looked as though Walker might have a chance to join Greg Norman and Sergio Garcia as players to lose a six-shot lead in the final round.

He was never seriously challenged until Johnson, and then Renner, put together a strong finish. Johnson, a two-time winner at Pebble Beach, closed with a 66 on a card that included three bogeys. Renner, who had yet to make a cut all year, made five birdies on the back nine for a 67.

Walker made a 10-foot birdie on the 11th hole and was seemingly on his way.

But he hit a poor chip on the par-3 12th for a bogey. He three-putted the 13th for a bogey. He settled down for three simple pars and was two shots clear with two to play. Walker three-putted the 17th, missing a 3 1/2-foot par putt. He tried to play it safe on the 18th with an iron off the tee that found the right rough.

From 25 feet above the hole, he hit the birdie putt too hard and had one anxious moment.

“I hate three-putting,” Walker said. “I had two of them back there, and definitely didn’t want another one on the last.”

Walker finished on 11-under 277 and earned $1.188 million, expanding his lead in the Ryder Cup standings to more than $1 million over Mickelson in second place. The Ryder Cup is based on PGA Tour earnings, though there are still four majors (which count double), three World Golf Championships and The Players Championship remaining.

For now, the stars are aligned for Walker better than anything he sees through his high-powered telescope.

“I just go out and play golf,” Walker said. “This is what I want to do and I’ve worked really hard to do it, to be here, and to be in this position and it’s really cool.”

Jordan Spieth had to return Sunday morning to complete his third round, which ended with his sixth three-putt of the round for a 78. He faced Pebble at its most vicious throughout the third round, though he bounced back with a bogey-free 67 to at least tie for fourth with Kevin Na (69).

And he hasn’t lost his sense of humour.

“Yesterday was a day where you want to play Pebble Beach in that weather once in your life,” Spieth said. “You just don’t want it be Saturday when you’re in the lead.”

Chalk it up to another learning experience for Spieth, who said his 36 putts were more a product of not having the speed than the less-than-smooth quality.

“I felt like I needed birdies when I didn’t,” he said.

Another strong finish belonged to Graeme McDowell, returning to Pebble for the first time since his U.S. Open title in 2010. He closed with a 67, happy with a week in which he would have settled for just knocking some rust off his game before heading to Riviera next week.

Outside of Walker, however, the big winner was Renner.

He was among the Web.com Tour graduates who played poorly in the four “finals” event that determine priority ranking, and struggled to get into tournaments. In his fifth start, he not only made his first cut, Renner earned a spot at Riviera next week and will be in better position to get into events over the next couple of months.

“It was pretty big,” Renner said. “I just knew I needed a good week. My back was up against the wall, and that’s something I’m familiar with and I don’t mind it. But I’m happy that I freed myself up a little bit for the rest of the year.”

DIVOTS: Jim Renner and John Harkey Jr., the CEO of Consolidated Restaurant Operations, Inc., won the pro-am portion of the tournament. … Tim Wilkinson, playing in the final group with Jimmy Walker, closed with a 73 and tied for seventh. That gets him into the Northern Trust Open next week at Riviera. … Walker was the fourth Pebble Beach winner since 1994 to shoot 74 in the final round – Johnny Miller in 1994, Dustin Johnson in 2010, and Graeme McDowell in the 2010 U.S. Open… Canada’s Mike Weir and Brad Fritsch failed to make the 36 hole cut.