Taylor drives to fore

ORLANDO, Fla. -- With a birdie at the par-5 sixth in yesterday's third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Vaughn Taylor afforded himself a glance at the leaderboard. He was six shots behind Rocco Mediate.

Some three hours later, when Taylor got his next look at the big board, his eyebrows were raised as much for the name he saw at the top (his) and the one that wasn't prominent (Tiger Woods).

"I don't even know what he shot, but I was surprised," said Taylor, who got it up-and-down from 88 yards to save par at the 441-yard, par-4 18th and preserve a round of 3-under-par 67. That pushed him to 8-under 202 and into a two-shot lead over Ben Curtis (69), with Vijay Singh (67) and Tom Lehman (69) tied for third at 205.

You have to filter through five names tied at 206 to find Woods, whose steady ride of 70 left him at 3-under 207, tied for 10th with six others. Where once he won this tournament four straight times, Woods has finished T-46, T-23, and T-20 the last three times, so you could assume he's pleased to be within five of Taylor.

"Ecstatic, actually," said Woods, who concedes that he felt he had shot himself out of the tournament with Friday's 73, a round that featured "some of the worst God-awful shots you've ever seen in your life."

While Taylor shook off bogeys at Nos. 3 and 4 to play the next 14 holes in 5 under and seize the lead, the day at the Bay Hill Club & Lodge was as much about those who stumbled. Mediate started the day with a three-shot lead, birdied No. 1, then fell apart. With an inward 40, Mediate shot 76 and is in the 3-under logjam.

Paul Casey also had a spot in the final pairing and got it to 10 under with a birdie at the sixth. But the Englishman played the last 11 holes in 7 over to shoot 73.

Boo Weekley thought he was saving Tom Johnson a possible two-shot penalty. Instead, he cost himself two shots. With Johnson on the green at the par-3 second, but 85 feet away, he chose to chip the ball up a big slope, though he did not ask his caddie to tend the pin. As the ball approached, Weekley pulled the pin, knowing that had it made contact, it would have been a penalty on Johnson. Because he wasn't authorized to tend the pin, the two-shot penalty went to Weekley. Given a two-shot penalty, Weekley signed for 69 and at 1 under he is seven back . . . When he finished his second round at approximately 1:30 Friday, Brett Quigley was 3 over and tied for 84th. He drove 2 1/2 hours to his house in Jupiter, Fla., assuming he had missed the cut, only to discover hours later that 3 over made it in. Quigley had a 3:30 a.m. wake-up call to get back to Orlando for his 8:40 tee time in Round 3.