LEADERS OF THE PACK; STRICKER, SINGH ARE FOUR STROKES IN FRONT AT PGA CHAMPIONSHIP.

Byline: Associated Press 

Steve Stricker and Vijay Singh saved their best shots for the end Saturday in the PGA Championship. Everyone else will have to play their best to catch them today.

The shootout at Sahalee, which began with 13 players within three strokes of the lead, turned into a duel between Stricker and Singh.

Both were at 7-under 203 and had a four-stroke lead over defending champion Davis Love III, 1995 PGA champion Steve Elkington and Nissan Open winner Billy Mayfair.

Lurking another stroke back at 208 were Mark O'Meara - who is trying to join Ben Hogan as the only players to win three majors in a year - and Tiger Woods.

``If I get out there and play the way I did (Saturday) - only make the putts - I've got a reasonable shot,'' said O'Meara, who made only two birdies in his round of 69. ``I'll probably be three or four shots back, and that's never that bad.''

O'Meara was two strokes back after three rounds when he won both the Masters and the British Open. A victory today at Sahalee Country Club would match Hogan's 1953 trifecta of the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open.

The Stricker-Singh duel culminated with great shotmaking on the treacherous back nine.

Stricker hit a 7-iron from the bunker on No. 16 to 10 feet for birdie, then hit a spectacular chip from under a tree and over a bunker to save par on the difficult 18th for a bogey-free round of 4-under-par 66.

Singh recovered from a shaky start by firing at the pins, and he kept pace with Stricker.

The 31-year-old Stricker has never been in contention in a major, and he considers it a victory that he's even in contention at all. After a sensational season in 1996, when he won twice and was fourth on the money list, he changed equipment and went into a deep slump.

But he has finished in the top 10 in five of his last seven tournaments, dating to the Byron Nelson Classic in May.

``I hope I come out like I did (Saturday), real aggressive,'' Stricker said.

Singh had a close call in the PGA Championship five years ago, when he tied the record for lowest score in a major with a 63 in the second round, but he stumbled on the weekend with 73-70 and finished two strokes out of a playoff.

``I've just got to be thinking about what I'm supposed to do out there, not what I'm feeling,'' Singh said.

Stricker was in control from the start, swinging purely and quickly picking up his tee as his drives split through the corridor of trees and onto the fairway.

When he holed an 18-foot putt for birdie on the 444-yard eighth hole, he became the first player all week to get to 6-under.

But Singh didn't back off, not after two bogeys on the back nine stopped his momentum and not when his approach was swatted down by a Douglas fir on the par-5 11th.

He chipped up to three feet for birdie, knocked in a 10-footer for birdie on the par-3 13th and then really found his groove, belting a drive 333 yards on No. 15 and punching a wedge into six feet for another birdie.

Maybe the roar of the crowd that rose up through the trees woke up everybody else. Just when it looked like the PGA Championship would come down to a duel between two players looking for their first major, Elkington, O'Meara, Love and even Woods gave a tantalizing glimpse of today's drama.

Love, trying to become the first repeat champion since the PGA went to stroke play in 1958 - and the first since Denny Shute in 1937 - bogeyed three of the first six holes before turning it around with back-to-back birdies.

Woods shot 70, a score that easily could have been much worse.

Despite a 15-foot birdie putt from the fringe on the first hole, Woods struggled with accuracy from the tee and even the fairways, but he managed to stay in the hunt for his first major since the 1997 Masters with a gutsy short game.

``I felt I couldn't control my shots that well,'' he said. ``I had to somehow manage my way a`round and gut it out. I did a pretty good job of that.''

Woods made bogey on the par-5 second hole with a 5-iron second shot, and also bogeyed the par-3 fifth hole by flying the green. But he made nine straight pars from there, including a save from the back lip of the bunker on No. 10.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos, Box

PHOTO (1--2--Color) Through three rounds of the PGA Championship, Steve Stricker, left, and Vijay Singh, right, have held off some of the better-known players on the tour. They share a four-stroke lead.

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press and Dave Martin/Associated Press

(3) Tiger Woods, who gets out of a bunker on No. 2, is five shots off the lead. Woods struggled with his accuracy and finished with a 70.

Dave Martin/Associated Press

BOX: LEADERBOARD