Miami ? The showdown turned into a circus act late Saturday afternoon at Doral until Tiger Woods came through with a risky shot into the 18th green and restored order to a jumbled leaderboard.

Woods recovered from a double bogey to surge into the lead, then carved a shot through the trees on the final hole and escaped with a 4-under 68 that left him two shots clear of Daniel Chopra and Rich Beem heading into the final round of the Ford Championship at Doral.

A half-dozen players had a share of the lead at some point on the balmy Blue Monster until Woods emerged from the pack with three straight birdies on the back nine and finished at 17-under 199.

“I’m in good shape, I guess,” Woods said.

But he had plenty of help.

Camilo Villegas, the 24-year-old rookie from Colombia, stayed with him step-for-step, birdie-for-birdie until hitting behind a banyan tree at No. 18 and having to play his next shot down the first fairway. It took 20 minutes to clear the gallery out of his way, and he hit over the palms to 30 feet, only to three-putt for double bogey.

“I was working hard on that one, but I had no shot when I got to my ball,” he said. “I started focusing on hitting a good third shot, which I did. And unfortunately, I just missed a short one there to go home.”

Phil Mickelson, playing in the final group with Woods that brought out a record crowd of 37,000, slowly lost ground on the back nine before hitting off barren grass into the water on the 18th. He made a 15-footer to save bogey, but still wound up four shots behind.

The fans sure got their money’s worth, one man in particular. He was hit by Mickelson’s errant 3-wood on the 10th hole, and it broke his watch. Mickelson went to check on him, and pulled two $100 bills from his bag to pay for the watch.

“It wasn’t a Rolex,” Mickelson said.

Woods is 33-3 on the PGA Tour when he has at least a share of the 54-hole lead, and he played solidly again except for dunking an 8-iron into the water on the par-3 ninth for a double bogey.