Lawrie in contention as Woods struggles

Paul Lawrie tonight stepped up his bid for a second major title at the US Masters as Tiger Woods kept his dreams of a third straight title alive.

Lawrie picked up three birdies in the first eight holes of his third round at Augusta this afternoon to move into second place behind leader Mike Weir of Canada.

And Tiger Woods was also making a move up the leaderboard after producing a typical moment of magic earlier today to simply survive the halfway cut right on the mark of five over.

The world number one needed to par the ninth, his final hole, to qualify for the last two rounds, but pushed his drive into the trees and could only punch out a low shot into a greenside bunker some 15 yards from the flag.

But not for the first time when under huge pressure, Woods delivered the goods with a superb bunker shot to three feet and holed the putt to card a 73 and five over par total of 149.

That was still 11 shots behind halfway leader Weir, but having once come from eight behind Ernie Els in the final round to win an event, Woods could not yet be ruled out.

And typically it did not take long for Woods to signal his intentions, after starting with a par on the 10th, his opening hole, the 27-year-old American holed from 50 feet for birdie on the 11th.

Woods made the most of a piece of good luck on the 13th when his second shot to the par five stuck in the bank of Rae’s Creek instead of rolling back into the water – only possible because of the extremely wet conditions.

The defending champion chipped and putted for a birdie four and also made a birdie on the 15th after hitting the green in two, improving to two over par, nine shots behind Weir.

That gap became eight when Weir bogeyed the fifth to drop back to six under, the left-hander now just four ahead of Lawrie.

Lawrie, who had failed to make the cut on all three of his previous visits to Augusta, completed a second successive 72 this morning with a birdie on his last hole.

The former Open champion then recovered from a bogey on the first hole of the third round with birdies at the second, sixth and seventh to move to two under par.

Six players shared third place on one under, among them world number two Ernie Els who had fared even worse than Woods in the first round, a seven over 79 seemingly ruining his chances of adding the Masters title to his Open triumph at Muirfield last year and two US Open victories.

But the South African hit back superbly with a second round 66, completing his last seven holes this morning in 25 shots despite failing to birdie either of the par fives.

In fact Els had seen his second shot to the 13th stop on the bank of Rae’s Creek instead of rolling back into the water, and then saved par on the 15th despite finding water in front of the green.

A bogey on the first hole of his third round dropped him back to two over par, but birdies at the second and eighth, and an eagle two on the seventh more than cancelled out another dropped shot on the fourth.

Darren Clarke however was falling down the leaderboard, three bogeys in his first six holes dropping the Irishman back from second at halfway to one over par, seven behind playing partner Weir.