| AP Sports Headlines |
Saturday, July 20, 2002
By PATRICK REUSSE
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
GULLANE, Scotland
-- Tiger Woods was three strokes off the lead and tied with 14
players for 22nd place after the first round of the British Open.
He is two strokes off the lead and tied with seven players for
ninth place after the second round.
Yes, the vision of Woods trying to win golf's first professional
Grand Slam at Hazeltine in mid-August became more clear on Friday,
as his three-under 68 moved him up the leaderboard at calm, cushiony
and still-dangerous Muirfield.
There are five tied for the lead at 6-under 136 for 36 holes: Ernie Els, Duffy Waldorf, Shigeki Maruyama, Padraig Harrington and Bob Tway, the PGA champion way back in 1986 and last a winner in the 1996 Mexican Open.
There are three lesser-known players at 137: Sweden's Carl Petterrson, Denmark's Soren Hansen and Des Smyth, a 49-year-old Irishman waiting for his next birthday (Feb. 12, 2003) so he can join a senior tour.
Then comes Woods and his companions at 138, including Scotland's home country hero Colin Montgomerie, three-major winner Nick Price and Mark O'Meara.
"Any time you are near the lead in a major championship you have to be happy," Woods said. "I don't think I need to go out and shoot 62. That's not how I play. You have to get the ball in play, and from there decide whether to be aggressive or conservative going at the green.
"The putts didn't go in today, and I had to stay as patient as possible."
Patience is wonderful, but you have to expect that even Tiger Woods has to start making a few of those 8-to-10-foot birdie putts if he's going to add the 2002 British Open to the 2002 Masters and U.S. Open to his major collection.
Woods had 30 putts on Friday, raising his two-day total to 63 putts. That put him in a tie for 114th in putting among the 153 players in the full-field statistics.
The greens on the Muirfield links are always a bit slower than the way they are played on the PGA Tour. Throw in four days of intermittent rain and they are extra-slow.
"It's a tough adjustment to go ahead and hit a 20-footer, and know you have to rap it," Woods said.
The makeable birdie putts have been turning away from the cup for two days, but the indomitable will of Woods remains in view. It started on the first hole Thursday, when Woods hit his opening shot into Muirfield's hay crop and somehow escaped with an astounding par.
Friday, he was going to make bogey after driving into more hay at the par-4 10th, but saved par by center-cutting an 18-foot putt with a sizable break.
Woods was looking at settling for a par at No. 17, the back nine's only par-5, after hitting his second shot onto a weed-covered mound. So, he hacked the ball out of there, then made an 18-footer from off the green for his third birdie (to go with 15 pars).
"I told myself, 'If I can't make one on the green, then I will make one from off the green,' " he said. "Lo and behold, that's what happened."
A much-better score than 68 was available in these conditions, as demonstrated by Montgomerie's 7-under 64 and by Els' 7-under 29 on the front nine.
Tiger's going to have to solve these Muirfield greens to shoot a number like that, or there figure to be a bunch of challengers still standing on Sunday afternoon.
Two Americans who figured to be in the group trying to derail Tiger were surprising dropouts Friday.
David Toms, the last non-Tiger winner of a major (the 2001 PGA Championship), was a first-round co-leader. Friday, he started with a double-bogey on the rugged first and never recovered, finishing with a 75. That put him at even-par 142 and 42 players removed from the lead.
Phil Mickelson also started with a double-bogey after pushing his drive into the waist-high hay. He had another double-bogey on the back, shot a 76, landed exactly on the cutline (2-over 146) and basically guaranteed himself of being 0-for-41 in majors after this British Open.
The most-amazing presence on the leaderboard has to be Smyth, a vagabond on the European Tour since 1979. He slipped into a 13th-place tie on the tight confines of Royal Lytham last year, this earning his 22nd British Open start.
"I am lapping it up," Smyth said. "I set my target to make the cut. My next one is to stay in the top 15 and get in next year. (But) I'm tired of playing against these young guys."
|
|
 |
© 1995- The E.W.
Scripps Co. and the Abilene Reporter-News. All Rights Reserved. Site users are subject to our User Agreement. We also have a Privacy Policy. |
