Charles Howell leads the AT&T Classic by one stroke after 54 holes.  A place he’s occupied three previous occasions, resulting in zero wins.

The last time was the 2007 Sony Open, in which he finished second to Paul Goydos.  For the second week in a row, Kenny Perry will be in the last group, his 69 leaving him a shot behind.  Hopefully no dreams of final round 81’s will dance in his head this evening.  Mr. Howell shot a 5 under par 67 to finish 13 under par after three rounds.  Weather is expected tomorrow afternoon so tee times have been pushed up, and the players will go off both tees in threesomes.  “It will be different,” Howell said. “It’s not the normal twosomes later in the day. From what I understand, it’s going to be quite windy. This golf course is really tough in the wind. There’s a lot of risk-reward out here. A lot of it.”

David Toms (69), Ryan Palmer (70) and second round leader Jonathan Byrd (73) are all two shots back.  Ryuji Imada (66) and Heath Slocum (69) are tied for sixth three shots off the lead. 

Mr. Howell missed the cut at the Players, and is hoping to win from in front for the first time in his career.  As long as he stays in the fairway he figures he can do just that.  “The one thing I’ve worked extremely hard on over the past year is driving the ball,” Howell said. “Simply because that starts the hole. It puts you in position to play the golf course. Not taking anything away from the importance of the short game, but you’ve got to drive the ball first.”  Of course that seems like the thing to say when your Achilles heel has always been from inside 50 yards.  Which seems to mean it comes down to his driver and his putter.  Hmmmm…that just sounds so familiar for some reason. 

Mr. Perry wants to make up for last weeks epic meltdown, if he’d been in Wisconsin the entire state would be buried under melted cheese due to his flaming crash. “I had the mind-set that I was going to shoot a low round,” Perry said. “That was just kind of in my head today. I felt very comfortable out there. I wasn’t nervous. My swing felt great.”  Good for Mr. Perry, so just don’t be thinking about grilled cheese sandwiches tomorrow, eh. 

Mr.Imada has an interesting take on tomorrow, thinking it’ll be a frantic kind of shoot out.  “Hopefully nobody’s going to run away the last four or five holes,” Imada said. “If I’m within three or four shots of the lead, I know I’ve got a chance. And I’d say there’s about 15 guys who have a chance to win if that’s the case. So I just want to go out there and make a lot of birdies.”  That sounds like somebody who missed the weather report for tomorrow.  Particularly the part about a lot of wind.  This is not a course that can be lit up in a big wind, so it should be interesting to see how Mom Nature chooses to influence play. 

So we have another twenty something, an old fart, and Mr. Toms whose in between, comprise the final threesome.  As much as I’d like to bet on the twenty something Mr. Howell I sense history may have hollowed out a space in his head occupied by a voice whispering nasty somethings in his ear.  I see a toss up between the old fart Mr. Perry and thirty something Mr. Imada, with Mr. Imada hitting more shots closer to the hole in the wind than Mr. Perry.  The reason I say this is I don’t think Mr. Perry can hit a cut, a shot he’s gonna need in the wind so his trademark right to left ball flight doesn’t left itself right off the course.