J.J. Spaun takes the lead at The Players Championship on windy day that wrecked rounds

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — J.J. Spaun only had to look at the video boards around the TPC Sawgrass to appreciate the chaos going around him Saturday in The Players Championship.

Will Zalatoris was tied for the lead and then his name was gone after an astonishing stretch of 9-over par on the last five holes. Lucas Glover fell back, and then he was there again, and then sliding. A double bogey-eagle-double bogey stretch will do that.

So imagine Spaun's relief when his final putt on a wild, windy, round-wrecking day swirled 360 degrees around the cup and dropped for a par. He had a 2-under 70, the best score of the final 10 groups, and a one-shot lead over Bud Cauley.

Spaun made his share of mistakes, just not that many and none too egregious.

“I was hitting really good quality golf shots from tee to green and just giving myself looks and not really being in stressful situations,” Spaun said. "Keeping the ball in front of me, keeping it in the short grass for the most part. I was just trying to hit it close to pins, but only when we knew we had the right club and the right wind to do so, and if not, then we were just going to hit it to 30 feet and try to make one.

“I think that’s the key to playing in really tough conditions, especially around a course like this.”

What so many others wouldn't give for that.

Cauley, whose body was crushed in a car crash during the Memorial in 2018, took a big step toward a long recovery. He teed off two hours earlier — still facing a bulk of the wind — and finished with three birdies on his last four holes for a 66.

That put him in the final group with Spaun and Glover, whose crazy finish ended with a 71.

“It’s pretty razor thin around here anyway," Glover said. “And then you add in 25, 30 miles an hour with some gusts, it shrinks things even more. I did a good job where I was missing for the majority of the day, and there was a couple holes where you just can’t miss.”

Spaun was at 12-under 204. Glover and Alex Smalley were three back.

There was plenty of heartache, not including the five rounds in the 80s, the worst of it an 85 by Emiliano Grillo. The Argentine started the second round just five shots behind and ended 19 shots out of the lead.

Zalatoris was briefly tied for the lead when he stepped on the 14th tee. He played the final five holes in 9-over par — a quadruple bogey on the 14th, a double bogey on the 15th, a ball in the water on the 17th for double bogey and a bogey at the last. It added to a 78.

He went from tied for the lead to 10 shots behind in the span of about an hour.

Rory McIlroy made birdie on the final hole to salvage a 73 and perhaps his chances, leaving him only four shots behind.

“Most of the dropped shots were from around-the-green mistakes rather than tee-to-green,” McIlroy said. "I felt like I hit the ball pretty well, controlled my flight. Not out of it by any means The wind is supposed to still be blowing tomorrow, so yeah, it was nice to birdie that just to get one closer to J.J. on the last.”

Two-time defending champion Scottie Scheffler wasn't so fortunate. He was hanging around and poised to get closer until he went from the pine straw left of the par-5 16th fairway to a bunker, then another bunker under a large tree and wound up with a bogey.

He three-putted from long range for bogey on the 17th, tossing his ball into the water. He hit what he thought was a perfect wedge on the 18th only to see it roll off the back of the green. He had a 72.

A year ago, Scheffler birdied his last three holes to get within five shots and wound up winning with a 64. This time he played bogeyed two of the last three and was seven behind.

Is that too much?

"I'm not really thinking about it too much right now," he said. “I’m just a bit frustrated with the finish but hoping to come out of the gates a little bit better tomorrow and turn things around.”

The forecast was for more wind and enough rain that the PGA Tour moved up the tee times to send players off in threesomes from both sides Sunday morning.

Akshay Bhatia, who shared the 36-hole lead with Min Woo Lee, put up a good fight after a miserable start, going from a birdie on the opening hole to a bogey-bogey-double bogey stretch that sent him spiraling down the leaderboard. He shot 75 and still wound up with a chance, four shots behind. Lee shot 78.

Collin Morikawa had more of a slow bleed with eight bogeys that sent him to 77, leaving him eight shots behind.

The group at 7-under 209 included Patrick Cantlay and Danny Walker, who left Friday evening after a three-putt that looked as though it would cost him the cut. But he made it on the number, teed off first before the wind arrived and posted a 66.

Walker didn't get into the tournament until Jason Day withdrew Thursday morning. Now he's in the mix with so many others, chasing the $4.5 million prize from a $25 million purse that includes a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Lucas Glover reacts after missing a putt on the fifth hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Will Zalatoris waves after making a birdie on fifth hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Akshay Bhatia looks for his tee shot on the fifth hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Min Woo Lee hits out of a bunker on the fourth hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Rickie Fowler's golf ball is stuck in a tree along the 15th fairway during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Alex Smalley chips onto the 11th green during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

J.J. Spaun watches his tee shot on the 12th hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Akshay Bhatia hits his tee shot on the 12th hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

J.J. Spaun hits his second shot on the 15th hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Rory McIlroy hits out of a fairway bunker on the 15th hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

J.J. Spaun watches his birdie putt on the 15th hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Rory McIlroy reacts after missing his birdie putt on the 15th hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Scottie Scheffler hits his approach shot on the 16th hole during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Bud Cauley looks over the 18th green during the third round of The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge barred the Trump administration Saturday from carrying out deportations under a sweeping 18th century law that the president invoked hours earlier to speed removal of Venezuelan gang members from the United States.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg said he needed to issue his order immediately because the government already was flying migrants it claimed were newly deportable under President Donald Trump’s proclamation to be incarcerated in El Salvador and Honduras. El Salvador already agreed this week to take up to 300 migrants that the Trump administration designated as gang members.

“I do not believe I can wait any longer and am required to act,” Boasberg said during a Saturday evening hearing in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and Democracy Forward. “A brief delay in their removal does not cause the government any harm,” he added, noting they remain in government custody but ordering that any planes in the air be turned around.

The ruling came hours after Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was invading the United States and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority that allows the president broader leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.

The act has only ever been used three times before, all during wars. Its most recent application was during World War II, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.

In a proclamation released just over an hour before Boasberg's hearing, Trump contended that Tren de Aragua was effectively at war with the United States.

“Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organizations, including TdA,” Trump’s statement reads. “The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.”

The order could let the administration deport any migrant it identifies as a member of the gang without going through regular immigration proceedings, and also could remove other protections under criminal law for people the government targeted.

In a statement Saturday night, Attorney General Pam Bondi slammed Boasberg’s stay on deportations. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk,” Bondi said.

The Tren de Aragua gang originated in a prison in the South American country and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation’s economy came undone last decade. Trump and his allies have turned the gang into the face of the alleged threat posed by immigrants living in the U.S. illegally and formally designated it a “foreign terrorist organization” last month.

Authorities in several countries have reported arrests of Tren de Aragua members, even as Venezuela’s government claims to have eliminated the criminal organization.

The government said Trump actually signed the proclamation on Friday night. Immigration lawyers noticed the federal government suddenly moving to deport Venezuelans who they would not otherwise have the legal right to expel from the country, and scrambled to file lawsuits to block what they believed was a pending proclamation.

Boasberg issued an initial order at 9:20 a.m. Saturday blocking the Trump administration from deporting five Venezuelans named as plaintiffs in the ACLU suit who were being detained by the government and believed they were about to be deported. The Trump administration appealed that order, contending that halting a presidential act before it has been announced would cripple the executive branch.

If the order were allowed to stand, "district courts would have license to enjoin virtually any urgent national-security action just upon receipt of a complaint,” the Justice Department wrote in its appeal.

Boasberg then scheduled the afternoon hearing on whether to expand his order to all people who could be targeted under Trump's declaration.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign contended that the president had broad latitude to identify threats to the country and act under the 1798 law. He noted the U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Harry Truman to continue to hold a German citizen in 1948, three years after World War II ended, under the measure.

“This would cut very deeply into the prerogatives of the president,” Ensign said of an injunction.

But Lee Gelernt of the ACLU contended that Trump didn't have the authority to use the law against a criminal gang rather than a recognized state. Boasberg said precedent on that question seemed tricky but that the ACLU had a reasonable chance of success on those arguments, and so the order was merited.

Boasberg halted deportations for those in custody for up to 14 days, and scheduled a Friday hearing in the case.

The flurry of litigation shows the significance of Trump's declaration, the latest step by the administration to expand presidential power. Ensign argued that, as part of its reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001 attack, Congress had given the president power to delegate “transnational” organizations threats on the level of recognized states. And Gelernt warned that the Trump administration could simply issue a new proclamation to use the Alien Enemies Act against another migrant gang, like MS-13, which has long been one of Trump's favorite targets.

Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks along the southern border with Mexico, on Aug. 22, 2024, in Sierra Vista, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, March 14, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, March 14, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, March 14, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

FILE - Henry Carmona, 48, right, who fled Venezuela after receiving death threats for refusing to participate in demonstrations in support of the government, stands with friends and a reporter following a press conference by Venezuelan community leaders to denounce changes to the protections that shielded hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, including Carmona, from deportation, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)