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MARANA, Ariz. -- Graeme McDowell figured his luck had run out Friday at the Match Play Championship. After two remarkable rallies to even reach the third round, McDowell missed a pair of 8-foot putts to fall 2 down with two holes to play against Hunter Mahan, who had lost only four times in 18 matches at the Golf Club of Dove Mountain. "My head went down as I walked off the 16th green. I really thought I blew it," McDowell said after yet another improbable comeback. "I genuinely thought I was done this time. I really didnt think there was any way back from that." Even he couldnt believe what followed. McDowell won the next two holes to extend the match. He made a 20-foot par putt on the 20th hole to stay alive, and then won the next hole with a 15-foot birdie putt. "Nine lives have been used up -- and then some," McDowell said. Ernie Els is 5-over par in 57 holes over three matches and he reached the quarterfinals. Jim Furyk has been at least 2 down in every match and he advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time in 14 appearances. Rickie Fowler won a match that featured an 18-foot par putt conceded to him by Sergio Garcia, who felt bad because of a ruling that had taken too much time on the previous hole. The Accenture Match Play Championship always has its share of wild tales. McDowell tops them all. How else to explain how a guy can play 58 holes over three matches without ever hitting a tee shot with the lead? Most players are relieved with every match they win. McDowell felt a tinge of guilt. "Embarrassed is the wrong word. Im not embarrassed," he said. "But I just feel like Im robbing these guys." Perhaps its only fitting that his quarterfinal match is against Victor Dubuisson of France, who took out Bubba Watson. Dubuisson has never trailed at any point this week. He plays the guy who has never led a single hole while the match was going on. In other matches: -- Furyk, getting plenty of support from his college days at Arizona, rallied from an early deficit to beat Harris English on the 18th hole. He next plays Fowler, who made birdie on the 18th for a 1-up win over Garcia. -- Jason Day, who played 40 holes over the opening two rounds, had a relatively easy time in beating George Coetzee, 3 and 1. Day will play the quarterfinals against Louis Oosthuizen, who was stellar in a 5-and-4 win over Webb Simpson. -- Els beat a reigning major champion for the second straight day -- U.S. Open champion Justin Rose on Thursday, PGA champion Jason Dufner on Friday. Even though he was scrappy again, the Big Easy birdied the 18th for a 1-up victory over Dufner. Now its time to play 20-year-old Jordan Spieth, who had 10 birdies on his card to take out defending champion Matt Kuchar. Els has made only nine birdies all week. The only player who had a more unlikely run to the quarterfinals in the 16-year history of this Accenture Match Play Championship was Geoff Ogilvy at La Costa in 2006. In his opening four matches, he watched 10 times as his opponent had a putt to win the match. Ogilvy went extra holes in every match until the semifinals, and he went on to win the tournament. McDowell can only hope he gets the same outcomes. "Im playing with house money," he said. McDowell was 3 down to Gary Woodland with three holes to play when he won the next three holes, and then beat him with a birdie on the 19th hole in the opening round. He was 2 down with four holes to play against Hideki Matsuyama when he won two holes, made a 10-foot par to halve another, and won the 18th with a par. It bordered on ridiculous against Mahan, who had a 16-4 record on this golf course. Unlike the opening two days, McDowell actually had a chance to take the lead with birdie chances on the eighth, ninth and 10th holes. Mahan went ahead with a birdie on the 11th, prompting McDowell to say, "Im allergic to 1 up." Hes used to being down, especially late in the match. Mahan pitched to 3 feet for birdie on the 15th, and he won the 16th when McDowell three-putted for bogey. Both players drove into the rough on the 17th, both came up short in the bunker. McDowell had 10 feet for par, Mahan was inside of that by a few feet. McDowells par putt just curled into the left side of the cup, and he slammed his putter into the bag. "Where has that been all day?" he said. His cap was removed when Mahans putt slid by, and off they went to the 18th. McDowells approach caught the ridge, and he made the 6-foot birdie for overtime. Surely, his luck figured to run out on the 20th hole, the par-4 ninth, when his 3-wood caught a deep bunker and left him no shot at the green. McDowell hit 9-iron to get over the lip and barely cleared the desert, and his third shot settled 20 feet away. He made that for par and kept going until the next hole. It was the second time McDowell has beaten Mahan in match play. The other was far more important -- the decisive match at the Ryder Cup in Wales. "I didnt really know what to say to him," McDowell said. "I said everything but sorry, you know? I didnt say, Sorry. But I felt sorry for him. I didnt feel sorry for him, I felt sorry for what had happened." Germany Blank Jerseys . - Free agent defensive end Will Smith has signed with the New England Patriots. Leon Goretzka Jersey . The San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders are giving it a try, too. http://www.germanysoccerpro.com/Mesut-Ozil-Germany-Jersey/ . The last team in the NBA that will have any sympathy for the Thunder is the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are showing signs of putting everything together after two years of devastating injuries. Mats Hummels Jersey . The Toronto Blue Jays star won his second consecutive Hank Aaron Award as the most outstanding offensive performer in the AL on Monday after votes by fans and a panel of Hall of Famers were tallied. Kevin Trapp Jersey . The Maple Leafs may not have had a pick until the third round, but they have made the biggest move of the second day of the Draft, dealing defenceman Carl Gunnarsson and a fourth-round pick in the draft to the St.PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Martin Kaymer and Jordan Spieth are having a blast at The Players Championship -- one because hes playing good golf again, the other because thats all hes been doing. Kaymer followed his record-tying 63 on the Stadium Course on the TPC Sawgrass with a 3-under 69, capping off his round by hitting a pitching wedge to 3 feet on an island green with a back pin on the 17th hole. He had a one-shot lead going into the weekend as he tries to end more than two years without a victory. "Everything is coming together nicely," said Kaymer, a former PGA champion and world No. 1. Spieth, in his first big tournament since his runner-up finish at the Masters, hasnt shown any signs of a letdown. He pieced together another bogey-free round and converted pure swings into tap-in birdies on consecutive holes on the back nine that carried him to a 6-under 66. "I dont think its going to be possible to stay bogey-free for two more rounds with the greens firming up," Spieth said, not sounding at all like someone making his Players Championship debut. "Thats a nice goal to have, I think. When bogeys come, its going to be how I rebound." Kaymer was at 12-under 132. That matched the best 36-hole score on the Stadium Course at the TPC Sawgrass in 20 years, dating to Greg Normans record-setting performance. Norman made only one bogey that week. Spieth hasnt made a bogey all week -- he has gone 51 holes without a bogey going back to the third round at Hilton Head -- though he had to make a couple of tough chips look easy to keep a clean card. The 20-year-old Texan was still on the practice range when he saw Kaymer finish at 12 under, a score that felt impossible to catch in warm, blustery weather. The grass remained soft on the golf course, however, allowing players to take aim at the flags. Some players had no choice. Adam Scott, in his first tournament as a married man, kept alive his hopes of going to No. 1 in the world this week with three birdies in his last four holes for a 67. That was a 10-shot improvement from Thursday and enabled him to make the cut on the number at even-par 144. Brantford, Ont., native David Hearn finished the second round in a tie for 25th place. Rory McIlroy shot 42 on the front nine and appeared headed home early until making birdie on the 18th hole to salvage a 74 to make the cut. Not so fortunate was Phil Mickelson. He missed his birdie attempt on No. 18 and had a 70 to miss by one. Mickelson now has missed the cut in the two biggest events of the year -- the Masters and The Players.dddddddddddd "I dont feel bad about the game," Mickelson said. "But mentally, Im just really soft right now." Kaymer is winless dating to the HSBC Champions in Shanghai at the end of 2011. The more good scores he sees, the more often his name is on a leaderboard, the more confidence he gains. Darren Clarke watched it for two days, referring to him as a "finely tuned engineer." Even so, the 29-year-old German is hesitant to look beyond the next day. He knows its tough to follow a record-tying round with anything remotely close. So he lowered his expectations, figuring anything around par would be suitable, and then kept his distance from the field. "Yesterday was just a very special day for me," he said. "Even though I shot 9-under par yesterday ... if people want to talk negative about it, I then shot six shots worse. But you can always go in the negative. I see very positive things that I backed up that 9-under par with another decent round." Spieth was even better. He had to scramble for par from short of the ninth green and from behind the 10th green. He hit his stride in the middle of the back nine with two shots that were nearly identical -- a 6-iron on the par-3 13th that rode the ridge down to about 4 feet, and a 6-iron from 184 yards on the 14th to 3 feet. "It was a nice break to land and roll to pin-high, because it was a very tricky pin with quite a bit of slope around the hole," he said. Spieth has said he was proud of how he played the final round of the Masters, even with a two-shot lead with 11 holes to play. His game looks every bit as solid at Sawgrass, a course he had only seen while playing a junior event. He finished second in that one, too. And thats what keep him going. Asked he if was getting bored being in contention so much, he smiled and said, "No, because I havent won one." "You should probably have to win every time in order for it to get boring," he said. "But not even Tiger gets bored." Russell Henley didnt make a par over his last six holes -- three bogeys, three birdies -- for a 71 and was in third place at 8-under 136. Sergio Garcia (71), U.S. Open champion Justin Rose (71), Gary Woodland (71), Lee Westwood (71) and Jim Furyk (68) were six shots behind. The course appeared to be getting slightly firmer by the end of the day. The excitement figures to start on the weekend. ' ' '