Peter Hanson goes down a storm

Luke Donald and Graeme McDowell were waiting to tee off two strokes off the lead when a thunderstorm halted the lucrative Players Championship in Florida yesterday.

But their Ryder Cup team-mate Peter Hanson did get on to Sawgrass and after 16 holes of his third round the Swede was seven under par for the day and up from 60th to joint seventh.

On Friday, Hanson needed to birdie his last two holes - actually the eighth and long ninth - just to survive the halfway cut on level par.

But when the suspension came just after 1pm yesterday he was only three behind overnight pacesetter David Toms after making a hat-trick of birdies from the third and then picking up more shots at the ninth, 12th, 13th and long 16th.

Argentina's Angel Cabrera might have wished the sirens had sounded a few minutes earlier.

The former Masters and US Open champion was six under for the round and the tournament, but his last shot before he had to go in was a pulled 200-yard approach into the lake on the left of the 18th hole.

Phil Mickelson, meanwhile, was one under for the first six holes and three under for the event, but was forced into a change of club after apparently cracking the face of his 3 wood.

The world No.4, who had to win to take the top spot in the rankings for the first time in his life, sent a rules official to get a two-iron out of his car as replacement, allowed when a club is broken while playing.

For the third day running Mickelson was playing with Scot Martin Laird, who was two under after a bogey on the short third and birdie at the sixth.

Ian Poulter and 18-year-old Italian Matteo Manassero were on the same mark, while Martin Kaymer and Justin Rose, paired together, managed only two shots each before the hold-up. They were five under and Londoner Brian Davis six under.

A tree came down on to the 16th fairway during the suspension, with 40mph winds and a hailstorm leaving debris to clear up once the skies cleared.

With no play possible for over three hours the third round was bound to spill into today and there was the danger that the leaders would not play at all yesterday.

Meanwhile, Mark O'Meara believes it would do Tiger Woods good to chill out with him.

The 54-year-old was one of Woods's closest confidants when he first turned professional, but now plays most of his golf on the over-50s Champions Tour. O'Meara is competing at the Players Championship in Florida this week, though, and was greatly saddened by the sight of the former world No.1 limping out after nine holes on Thursday.

Asked what advice he would give Woods, the 1998 Masters and Open champion said: "Come and hang out with me for a while. That's what my advice would be, but he doesn't ask. I've thrown it out there."We go way back - we've spent a lot of quality time together. I believe when you're struggling it's good to be around your friends and people who really care about you. I feel like I'm a true friend to Tiger and I want to help him, but he's got to want to come and do it too.

"He's been struggling with this Achilles (tendon] for quite a while now. He needs to get that either fixed or figure out what he needs to do to get it 100 per cent.

"I played with him on Wednesday. I thought I saw some good signs of the way he was hitting the ball, but I did see him limping around out there. Even after dinner when he was walking to his car he looked like was he limping a little bit.

"He said it was OK, but he always goes with that."