With everything going right, Lee Westwood takes the lead

Westwood takes early lead at Sawgrass

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Lee Westwood tries to peak for the biggest tournaments. And while he doesn’t put The Players Championship in his top five, it’s big enough that he is playing some of his best golf going into the weekend.

Westwood ran off three straight birdies to start his back nine Friday on his way to a 7-under 65 to build a one-shot lead over Heath Slocum, Francesco Molinari of Italy and Ryuji Imada.

“As you get older, it gets harder to peak all the time when you want to,” said Westwood, a 37-year-old Englishman. “You have to pick and choose your ones, and you want to play well in the biggest tournaments. And this is one of the biggest tournaments.”

There’s a chance it might finally start playing like one.

Westwood was at 12-under 132, the lowest score to lead after 36 holes at The Players Championship since 1994, when Greg Norman was at 14 under on his way to setting the 72-hole record.

But as the wind picked up and the temperatures rose late in the afternoon, there were signs that the TPC Sawgrass was starting to get firm after two days of relatively soft conditions.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will be around for the weekend, which is about all that could be said for golf’s two biggest stars. Woods overcame one tee shot that flew off to the right at a 45-degree angle and gave him double bogey for a 1-under 71. Mickelson flirted with the cut line late in the day until making a tough chip look easy for birdie on the 16th. He shot a 71.

They were at 3-under 141, nine shots behind.

That might be too far back on a course where there already have been 73 rounds in the 60s, the most after two days on the Stadium Course since 1993. But with more heat and more wind, the final two days could be as unpredictable as ever.

“Because the character of the course is changing so much from the morning to the afternoon, the guys that are 2-, 3-, 4-under par are in the tournament,” Mickelson said. “Because if they shoot 6-, 7-, 8-under par, they’re going to move right up the leaderboard. And it’s going to be difficult for the leaders to pull away.”

It’s going to be really hard for major champions like Angel Cabrera, Stewart Cink, Vijay Singh and defending champion Henrik Stenson to make any move at all. They were among 15 players poised to make the cut on the number at 1-under 143 until John Merrick make a birdie putt just outside 12 feet on the final hole to knock them out.

That tied the tournament record for the lowest cut at 142.