Scott and Tiger ready to pounce on Snedeker

Tiger Woods holed out from a greenside bunker at the 18th hole last night to change the entire complexion of this Open Championship heading into the weekend’s decisive rounds at Royal Lytham & St Annes.

For a while, fellow American Brandt Snedeker had been sitting pretty at the top of The Open leaderboard, his bogey-free second-round 64 had not only helped to equal Nick Faldo’s 36-hole lowest score of 130 at Muirfield in 1992 but given him a four-shot cushion over the field after another benign morning on Lancashire’s Fylde Coast.

By the end of the day, his lead was down to one stroke at 10 under par from Australian Adam Scott and he was just four ahead of Woods, who shot a second consecutive 67. Denmark’s 22-year-old Thorbjorn Olesen’s 66 left him in fourth place overnight at five under with Ireland’s Graeme McDowell handily placed in a five-man group at four under following a 69.