63 gives Woods three shot lead

BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2007 PGA Tour Championship | Round Two | 15 Sep 2007

Tiger Woods has fired a superb second round of 63 to take a three stroke lead at the US$7 million Tour Championship in Atlanta.

At the completion of round two Woods leads by three over Woody Austin and by four over Tim Clark, Mark Calcavecchia and defending champion, Adam Scott. While it is a significant lead, especially given that it is Tiger Woods, it looked like it may have been even better as he reeled off five birdies and an eagle in succession over the closing holes of the front nine to record a PGA Tour best of 28, the lowest fo Woods’ career.

Woods had returned with the twenty players who had not finished round one early on Friday morning to complete their rounds. Three birdies and a bogey saw him finish with 64 and with the tee times in round two brought forward to avoid the possibility of yet another weather delay later in the day, there was little time to recover. He trailed the first round leader Tim Clark by two as he headed back onto the golf course.

Unlike round one where he had started quickly with three birdies, Woods took a while to get things underway in round two but when the birdies started coming at the 4th they did not stop. He holed a bunker shot at the 5th for his second birdie but the coupe de grace came at the 9th. An eagle putt from 70 feet at the par five hurtled into the cup at a speed that would have taken it perhaps ten feet by if it had missed but it didn’t and he lead by three as he turned for home.

Woody Austin moved into a share of the lead briefly with Tiger when he birdied the 13th. Austin was playing several groups ahead but when he bogeyed the 14th, Woods led by four.

The first stumble Woods would make in round two was when he hit driver at the par four 12th and found the thick right hand rough. It may have been a strategic mistake – one of the few Tiger makes these days. He had only 77 yards to the hole but so thick was the rough, he could only just reach the front bunker. A bogey there slowed the momentum but a nice up and down for birdie at the 15th had him back at 13 under. At the 16th he found the thick rough alongside the right of the fairway was blocked by trees and took bogey but then provided a grandstand finish to the day with a 17 foot put for birdie at the par three last to stay three ahead of Austin.

“It’s funny, I didn’t know I shot 28 on the front nine until we got in the scoring tent, until we added it up,” said Woods later. “You just play shot for shot. You place the golf ball and you don’t worry about anything else. I didn’t know I shot 7-under on the front nine.”

“These greens are such that you just take the low line and just hit it, and hopefully it goes in,” he added when referring to ordinary state of the greens. “I had some putts that went in and other putts that just missed, but the majority of the putts I hit went in.”

“You’re not really used to putting this way, always taking the low line and hitting it. I’m used to taking the higher line and kind of feeding the golf ball in there. It’s a different mentality. Firing it into the greens is a totally different mentality. It’s just different this week.”

Tim Clark was unable to reproduce the heroics of day one but he was solid enough to be in a share of third at the completion of 36 holes after a round of one under 69. He shares that position with Mark Calcavecchia and Adam Scott who has again positioned himself for a big week at East Lake Golf Club.

Scott added a 66 to his opening 65.

“My round today wasn’t as good as the first round, but, you know, got off to a bit of a scratchy start and made some good saves to kind of stay where I was and then got it going in the middle and then I was a bit scratchy toward the end. I’d like to hit it a little better over the weekend to keep myself right in it.”

Of those still with a chance of replacing Woods at the top of the FedEx Cup Series Phil Mickelson advanced his cause with a 66 to move to 6 under but seven behind Tiger and Steve Stricker improved with a second round of 67 to be at four under.

Of the other Australians, Geoff Ogilvy is at 2 under and in 22nd place, while Robert Allenby and Aaron Baddeley are at 1 under and in 24th place in the 30 player field.