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TORTOISE AND THE SCARE: Anthony Kim's scariest moment of the second round had nothing to do with gusting wind or slippery greens.
Kim and playing partner Boo Weekley spotted a turtle as they walked from the tee box to the green on the par-3 No. 8. At first, Kim would only touch the turtle's shell with his wedge. But Weekley convinced him to feel it with his hand.
Just as Kim started the stroke the shell, the turtle snapped its neck upward.
"He jumped and backed up real fast," Weekley said.
"He got me pretty good," added Kim, who shot 70 and was 4 under.
KRAFT'S BREAK: Greg Kraft didn't think his tee shot on the par-3 17th stayed on the green. He even stopped at the drop zone to hit another one.
It wasn't until he was about to drop a ball that the gallery and his playing partners alerted him that his shot landed a few feet from the edge, hidden in a sprinkler head.
"It's nice to get a good break on that hole because in 10 years I've had some bad ones," Kraft said.
Kraft was allowed a free drop from the sprinkler, then two-putted for par. He could have easily had a bogey or worse, and thanks partly to the break, he made the cut at 3 over.
"I'm just worn out. This course beat me up today," he said. "Starting at 3 over, knowing you have to shoot par to make the cut, it was a brutal day. It's a tough course."
STUPID STAT: The video boards behind the tee and green on the 17th hole are filled with information aimed at entertaining and informing the fans. But one of the statistics might be the most useless, which is saying something.
Among other things, the tour keeps track of how close a player hits his approach shot from various distances. The 17th hole was playing 142 yards Friday, and as each player stepped to the tee, it flashed his PGA Tour ranking on proximity to the hole from between 125 and 150 yards. Stephen Ames, for example, is ranked No. 94 on tour at 23 feet, 10 inches.
All that is great - except that most approach shots from that distance aren't to an island green.
So how did the No. 1 player in proximity from 125-150 yards do Friday? Well, that would be Corey Pavin, and he didn't qualify for The Players Championship. The second-ranked player is Kent Jones. He isn't here, either.
Boo Weekley was the highest ranked player in the field at No. 3. But at The Players, his ranking from that distance is No. 116.
Go figure.
CLARK'S RECORD: Tim Clark set a tournament record Friday - and not a good one.
Clark recorded a quintuple-bogey 10 on the 573-yard ninth hole. His first two tee shots landed in the water right. He found the fairway with his third shot, then hit his next one into a large bunker short and left of the green. His seventh shot flew the green. He chipped to about 20 feet and two-putted for 10.
It was the highest score every carded at No. 9 in the 27 years The Players Championship has been played at TPC Sawgrass.
Only four larger number have ever been posted at Sawgrass in tournament history. Phillip Hancock took a 12 at the par-4 fourth in 1985, Bob Tway carded a 12 at No. 17 in 2005, Robert Gamez finished the famed island hole with an 11 in 1990 and Andre Stolz wound up with an 11 at the 18th in 2005.
DIVOTS: Vijay Singh, Justin Leonard, Padraig Harrington, Mark Calcavecchia, Geoff Ogilvy, K.J. Choi and Justin Rose were among the notables who missed the cut, which was 3 over. ... Robert Garrigus had the shot of the day. He aced No. 13 with an 8-iron from 164 yards. And he did it without much thought. "I was joking around, trying to chuck stuff in the garbage, not really paying attention, get up, slap an 8-iron right at it and ended up going in," he said. "It was kind of a shock." ... Eighteen balls found the water on the par-3 17th Friday, giving the famed hole a two-day total of 37.
