Judging by his taste in movies, which on the eve of one of his biggest tests in his career just happened to be the James Bond film Die Another Day, Padraig Harrington knew full well that he was to face a battle of attrition - with the course, with himself, and with a posse of pursuers - in the final round of the Players' Championship at the TPC at Sawgrass.

On a day grabbed from the heart of an Irish winter, with dark clouds and a chilly, gusting wind replacing the blue skies normally associated with Florida at this time of the year, competitors were faced with stern tests of not only their games, but their mental fortitude too.

Somewhat ironically, especially given the tough conditions, Robert Allenby produced the round of the championship, shooting a finishing 65 for 10-under-par 278 to assume the clubhouse lead and really put it up to those battling the conditions.

At the start of his round, Allenby was in a tie for 35th position and eight shots behind the third round lead held by Harrington and veteran American Jay Haas. By the end, he had leapfrogged most of those ahead of him.

"I never figured I was out of the race," insisted Allenby, who still had 19 groups behind him when he finished his round. "I always got out and play positive, and I've actually played some of my best golf in bad conditions. I was trying not to hit it too hard and to play within myself, and it worked."

It's just as well Harrington wasn't intimidated by being pursued going into the final round. Grouped up behind him, within six shots of his lead, were 21 players with a combined total of 124 wins on the US Tour. With that kind of quality chasing, it was no time to be fazed.

"I like the test of being the hunted," he admitted.

"Being out in front is the hardest position in golf.

"But it is the position that you want to be in. It's why we play the game, to deliver under pressure. It is the ultimate test of your game, to go out there leading and have all these guys coming at you - and for you to do the job."

Before heading off for his final round, Harrington insisted he would do it his way. "I'll just try to play my own game, that's it. On this golf course, the only time you would possibly change your gameplan is on maybe 16, 17 and 18, those closing holes."

If he were to glance over his shoulder waiting for a charge from Tiger Woods, it was one that failed to materialise as the world number one, with three wins from four tournaments prior to arriving in Sawgrass, uncharacteristically struggled in the tough conditions.

Instead, Davis Love III was the player to make the most significant move of those leading the chase and covered the front nine in 33, to move to 12-under and, at that time, assume the outright lead.

Harrington, though, like Woods, also struggled. And, having started the day sharing the lead with Haas, his consistent failure to find the fairway off the tee over the front nine forced him into a scrambling game that didn't always pay its usual dividends.

In his opening seven holes, in fact, Harrington only found the fairway once - on the second, which resulted in a birdie - but, elsewhere, the rough and waste bunkers were to prove costly enemies.

The Dubliner - who received physiotherapy from his medical practitioner Dale Richardson on Saturday night while watching the Bond movie in his hotel room, and who had another session yesterday morning prior to the final round - suffered back-to-back bogeys on the fourth and fifth holes to become a hunter rather than the hunter as the championship moved towards its finale.

Harrington's bogeys were the result of errant play off the tee. On the fourth, he missed the fairway left - in fact, he failed to find the fairway on this hole in all four rounds - and, with no option other than to pitch out sideways, he failed to get up and down from 100 yards, his par putt of 15 feet agonisingly lipping out.

Then, on the fifth, he found one of the waste bunkers that run up the right of the fairway and missed the green right, and failed to get up-and-down.

However, he steadied the ship, and prevent a run of three successive bogeys, by making a good par save on the sixth when holing from nine feet.

Harrington then followed a further four successive pars to reach the turn in one-over 37, leaving him on 10-under and trailing Love by two shots at that juncture. Love played error free golf on his front nine, producing birdies on the second, eighth and ninth holes to go ahead of Haas.

Meanwhile, Darren Clarke's quest to gatecrash the leaderboard was proving to be a frustrating one. Each time he birdied a hole, he followed with a bogey.

Having birdied the second, he bogeyed the third; and when he got another bogey on the seventh, he followed with a bogey at the eighth - where he missed the green left - and, then, to rub salt into his wounds, he also bogeyed the par five ninth when he hit his tee-shot into the water.