Garcia slips up in bid for victory

Sergio Garcia’s chances of winning the Deutsche Bank Championship were hanging by a thread more than halfway through the final round today.

Garcia bogeyed the ninth and 10th holes, both times lipping-out with his par-saving putts.

With seven holes to play, the Spaniard was not completely out of contention, but he needed something special to have a chance in a testing breeze at the Boston TPC.

He was in fourth place at 15-under, four strokes behind leader Vijay Singh of Fiji (11 holes), who headed Canadian Mike Weir (10 holes) by two strokes, with South African Ernie Els (12 holes) three shots behind.

Garcia, who has finished joint second in his past two starts, including that heartbreaker at the PGA Championship, made a fine start with three successive birdies from the second hole, but he found birdies hard to come by after that, failing to add to his tally.

Singh, meanwhile, jump-started his day with an eagle at the par-five second, and added birdies at holes six, seven and 11.

Weir, on the other hand, was going in the wrong direction, making a sloppy double bogey at the par-four ninth after taking four strokes to hole out from some greenside rough.

It was not a good week for the British contingent, with only Brian Davis and Martin Laird surviving the halfway cut.

However, they both retreated in the final round, Davis shooting 75 and Laird 73 to finish locked together at three-under 281.

Meanwhile, Paul Casey has failed to qualify for the BMW Championship starting in St Louis on Monday.

Only the top 70 players on the FedEx Cup play-off points list qualify to play there, and Casey will miss out, after missing the halfway cut here.

At the time, he was furious at the thought of missing next week, but a Ryder Cup captain’s pick no doubt will ease any lingering disappointment.

Whether Casey wants to go into the Ryder Cup without playing for two weeks is another matter.