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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The Players Championship has everything it wants for a weekend shootout — except, of course, the star power of Tiger Woods.
Through two rounds under a blanket of searing sunshine at TPC Sawgrass, the leaderboard is littered with possibilities with two rounds to play as 21 players within five shots of the lead.
David Toms, who hasn’t won in almost five years, sits atop the board at 10-under par after shooting 68 yesterday.
Right behind him are Nick Watney at 9-under, and Graeme McDowell, Steve Stricker, Luke Donald and Lucas Glover all 8-under.
Hunter Mahan, Aaron Baddeley, J.B. Holmes and current Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III are just three shots back at 7-under par.
Also in the mix entering the weekend are six players tied at 6-under par, including perceived bad-boy Rory Sabbatini, whose status on tour is in question with a possible suspension looming for an altercation he had with Sean O’Hair during a round in New Orleans three weeks ago.
That makes the possibility of Sabbatini winning this tournament, which is the PGA Tour’s crown jewel event, a deliciously uncomfortable scenario in the making.
According to some reports, Sabbatini could be suspended as soon as Monday.
Can you imagine PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, wearing a forced smile for the cameras on the back lawn of the grand clubhouse, presenting Sabbatini with the winner’s trophy and check one day before he might be suspending him?
Sabbatini scoffed at those reports.
“Oh man, you guys go for the fishing stories. It’s unbelievable,” he said. “I’ve got to focus on my job and not worry about all the hearsay-ers. I let them concoct their stories.”
O’Hair said yesterday that Sabbatini texted him and apologized in a phone conversation.
“He apologized, I apologized and life goes on,” O’Hair said. “Life’s too short to hold grudges. To be honest with you, Rory’s not a bad guy. I wouldn’t handle some of the things how he handles them, but that’s just a difference in personality.”
Said Sabbatini: “We talked and we just resolved things, because this is work out here and you don’t want there to be any kind of ill feelings or any kind of tension between anyone out here.”
Toms, who hasn’t won since 2006, could erase some tension with a win this weekend.
“I’ve had a lot of good rounds this year, but not a lot of great tournaments,” Toms said. “That’s probably been the difference in the last four or five years.”
The biggest tease of the day was Phil Mickelson, who looked like he was about the make a bold move with a scalding 5-under-par 31 on his front nine, which was the back nine.
But he killed the buzz on his back nine, shooting a stunning 40, to finish at just 2-under par, eight shots off the lead.
“I had a really good front nine and just let the round go,” Mickelson said. “I stopped hitting fairways and really kind of lost the momentum. It’s disappointing. I’m going to have to get past this, because this was a day I should be right up there within striking distance.”
Perhaps the best potential story this week is Love, a two-time winner here (1992 and 2003) who’s playing in his 26th Players Championship. A win here would fuel talk of Love trying to play on the Ryder Cup team he captains in 2012.
“I think this is my 25th time [actually 26th],” Love said. “You play that many times, you’ve got to learn something, so I’m pretty confident when I go out there that I have a good game plan for the golf course, it’s just a matter of executing it.”
mcannizzaro@nypost.com