IF IT’S not one member of golf’s aristocracy in Tiger Woods, it is another. Davis Love III simply stormed through the field to win The Players Championship, the most important event so far this year, by an astonishing six-stroke margin.

Love is 39 next month and in advance of that day he secured for himself the not inconsiderable birthday present of $1.08 million for his endeavours on a windy, grey afternoon on the Stadium Course at the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass. Not only that, he also drew a rare tribute from Fred Couples, his playing partner. “That was the best round I have seen anyone play,” Couples said.

Woods’s anticipated challenge for a third victory in a strokeplay event this year failed to materialise. More disappointingly, Padraig Harrington was unable to improve on his overnight total of 11 under par. Having moved to 12 under and outright second place with a birdie on the 16th, the Irishman had a wild moment on the 18th tee.

His drive sailed into the water that lines the entire left side of this 447-yard hole and he did well to get a five. Moments later he was $90,000 less well off when Jay Haas, the oldest man in the field, holed a 15-foot putt for a par to remain 11 under, level with Harrington.

Harrington found that, no matter how great his fighting spirit was, his lack of tournament golf meant that he was not fully prepared for such a stiff contest as he had with the Stadium Course.

He three-putted two holes on his outward half, then saved par on the next two only by virtue of some good chipping and putting. Watching him was like watching a man walking on ice in leather-soled shoes. At any minute, you thought to yourself, he is going to come a major cropper. On Thursday he had said that his golf was very much “work in progress”.

Now it looked just like that.

Woods’s performance was much more erratic. The challenge of the world No 1 began to unravel when he hit his second shot into the water that runs in front of the 4th. If any hope remained that Woods could pull off his third strokeplay victory of the year, those slight hopes were extinguished when he hit another shot into water, this time on the 11th.

Yet if Harrington was slightly disappointed, Darren Clarke, his fellow Irishman, was moderately pleased with the way that he played in finishing joint sixth. It had been thought that Clarke would prosper in the day’s windy conditions. Wind can blow many players off balance and disturb the delicate rhythm of their swings, but it leaves Clarke unaffected.

In a wind, Clarke simply widens his stance and shortens his backswing and, as a good striker of the ball, he is rewarded in that his shots veer from their target less than others.

Clarke, who was returning to England for six days’ rest before flying back for next week’s Masters, said that he had rarely been as well prepared as he is now for the Masters. “I’m really pleased with my progress,” Clarke said. I know what I am supposed to and I am beginning to do it.”

A burst of five birdies in a row starting at the eighth took Love from ten under par and amid several players to 15 under and with a lead of three strokes over Haas.

Love looked a little incongruous in his dark blue rainsuit and his face was half-hidden beneath a long-peaked hat. But his golf was startling, even if his clothes were not.