The 12 overnight leaders had still to tee-off when the storm struck at 1pm, but once they had the chance to play there was little Kelly could do to protect the advantage he had built so impressively on the first three days.

Woods sank a seven-foot birdie putt on the first and then produced more magic on the long second, chipping in for an eagle from around 30 yards.

Kelly, 117th in the world and chasing the first US Tour victory of his career, two-putted for birdie, but was only joint-leader as a result and when he three-putted the fourth Woods was out in front on his own for the first time.

Bernhard Langer was still not out of the hunt, though. He made a 12-footer on the first and when he added another birdie at the difficult 466-yard fifth he was nine-under-par, only three behind Woods. Kelly had fallen into a share for second spot on 11 under with Masters champion Vijay Singh, who remained the biggest danger to Woods.

The round is Woods’s last before the Masters starting on Thursday week, when he will, of course, be trying to become the first player in golf history to hold all four Majors at the same time.

He was also among those affected by the hold-up last season. A storm then left 20 players still to finish and on the Monday morning Woods was beaten to the prestigious title by Hal Sutton by a shot.

Two weeks ago all the talk was of the fact that the world number one had not won this season, though a worst finish of 13th hardly constituted a slump. Now he was looking for his second successive victory, having won the Bay Hill Invitational.

He already produced a moment at Sawgrass which will be played time and time again in reviews of his career.

That was the amazing putt from nearly 50 feet at the 17th hole of his thrill-a-minute third round 66.

The last 20 feet of the putt was down a slope which made it impossible to stop the ball by the hole.

Woods, however, magically judged the line to perfection and as the ball picked up speed it found the cup and dived in for a birdie two.

‘‘I’ve had that putt before and missed it to the right every time,’’ he said. ‘‘If I’d missed it would have been off the green easily.’’

Only 11 players had done their week’s work when play was suspended. Ian Woosnam was among them, a level par 72 leaving him 11 over par and joint 70th of the 75 survivors.

Nick Faldo had just chipped from one side of the 18th green into rough the other side when the siren sounded.

On his return at 4pm ‘‘I could have been at home by now,’’ he said he narrowly failed to hole the second chip and the bogey meant he also shot 72, but was five over.

Colin Montgomerie, who still held hopes of the title and its massive £776,978 first prize at halfway, slipped way out of the picture.

Having repaired some of the damage of his Saturday 75 with a front nine 34, the Scot double-bogeyed the 10th for the second day running, bogeyed the 15th and then ran up a seven on the long 16th.

Montgomerie was three over as a result, while Darren Clarke was one over with three to play and Padraig Harrington returned a 72 for two over.

American Joel Edwards did not appear for the final round because of something that happened at his very first hole on Thursday.

Following a third-round 77 Edwards went to tournament director Ben Nelson and informed him that ‘‘after several nights of contemplation and soul-searching’’ he was sure he had hit a moving ball on the green over 48 hours earlier.

In effect the 39-year-old therefore disqualified himself because the score he signed for in his first round, a level-par 72, did not include the penalty.