Casey bidding for a spot in the World's top 5..... Tiger and Weir struggling in round 3

Paul Casey is the highest-ranked player in the field at #9 and if he wins he could  make it four Europeans in the top five on the Official World Golf Ranking with Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell currently first, second and fourth'

He has taken a share of the lead at -16 (66) with Sweden's Peter Hanson (67) who is battling the flu at the Volvo Golf Champions in Bahrain.

"It was fun," said Casey. "I had good control of the ball for the first time this week and drove it very nicely."It was only one shot lower than the first two days, but a lot more comfortable and probably should have been lower." He missed from under six feet on the last.

Remember he failed to retain his Ryder Cup spot last year, and went through the season without a win in either Europe or America.
They have a one stroke advantage over Northern Ireland's Darren Clarke (67) and South African James Kingston (67)

Jimenez has a new putter in the bag after snapping his yesterday and was 4 shots (69) worse with it..

Italy is having a great week in Bahrain with 17 year old Matteo Manassero T6 (66) at -13 and the Molinari's T9 at -12

Our Puma pal Johan Edfors is still in there T6 (68), Sergio dropped 22 spots to T33 (73), and Open Champion Todd Hamilton tied the course record of -8 64 to move up 37 spots for a T13 at -11

T1 CASEY, Paul -16 18 -6 67 67 66 - 200

T1 HANSON, Peter -16 18 -5 66 67 67 - 200

T3 CLARKE, Darren -15 18 -5 69 65 67 - 201
T3 KINGSTON, James -15 18 -5 67 67 67 - 201

5 JIMÉNEZ, Miguel Angel -14 18 -3 68 65 69 - 202

T6 MANASSERO, Matteo* -13 18 -6 67 70 66 - 203
T6 EDFORS, Johan -13 18 -4 64 71 68 - 203
T6 GALLACHER, Stephen -13 18 -3 70 64 69 - 203

T9 MOLINARI, Francesco -12 18 -3 66 69 69 - 204
T9 NOREN, Alexander* -12 18 -5 67 70 67 - 204
T9 MOLINARI, Edoardo -12 18 -1 68 65 71 - 204
T9 HORSEY, David* -12 18 -7 69 70 65 - 204

PGA Tour

Play is under way at Torrey Pines and I can report that Tiger is +3 after 5 holes so far on today's round and Mike Weir who started on the 10th is a disastrous +5 through 7 holes... Recap to follow play

Bryan Angus