Hamilton hails wounded Tiger

British Open champion Todd Hamilton was not surprised to see Tiger Woods only two strokes behind him going into today’s second round of the American Express world championship at Mount Juliet in County Kilkenny – even knowing he was in pain every step of the way.

“Healthy or hurt, he’s got a big heart,” said Hamilton of the world number two, whose four-under-par 68 was a miraculous effort considering the agonies he had to endure.

“The guy never gives up and that’s why he’s the champion he is.”

There still remains a question mark over whether Woods, stricken by a problem between his shoulder blades a week ago, will be able to complete the 72 holes this weekend.

“I have to take it day-by-day,” he commented. “But there’s no doubt that that was the most hurt I’ve ever played.”

Defending a title he has won each of the last the last two years, Woods struggled to pick the ball out of the hole, was repeatedly bent over double, let out a yell on the second tee and carried his left arm between shots as though it was in a sling.

He made the decision he would play less than 20 minutes before his tee-off time, yet went out and birdied the first two and five of the first 11 holes to share the lead.

Beware the injured golfer indeed. Especially a wounded Tiger.

In the end he finished the opening round of the €5.5m event in joint eighth place and commented: “I didn’t know until I hit some drivers over 200 yards on the range that I would be able to tee off.

“I figured if I could do that then the way I was putting I could get it round under par. I took some pain-killers, but the spasms did not go away and I had some unbelievable shooting pains.”

It was unquestionably the performance of the day, but Hamilton’s was the lowest round and the 37-year-old would have been two clear but for a closing bogey.

Three months on now from his brilliant play-off victory over Ernie Els at Royal Troon, Hamilton has the chance to put some very rich icing on top of his cake.

In a fortnight, he will be compete for the €1.5m first prize – golf’s biggest cheque – in the HSBC World Match Play championship at Wentworth.

Not surprisingly, he is enjoying life at the moment.

“I paid attention to the Ryder Cup. It seemed like the Europeans were having a lot of fun and having played in Japan for 12 years to play for this amount of money is fun,” said Hamilton.

Among the 15 players he will be in competition with at Wentworth, it now emerges, is Europe’s triumphant Ryder Cup captain Bernhard Langer, who will be making his first appearance in the event since 1995.

The 47-year-old German, runner-up to Seve Ballesteros in both 1984 and 1985, has agreed to fill one of the vacancies caused by the decisions of Woods, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Davis Love, Justin Leonard, Shigeki Maruyama and Chris DiMarco to turn down their invitations.

Langer will also be up against three of his Detroit team – Lee Westwood, Thomas Levet and Miguel Angel Jimenez – but could well find himself playing world number one Vijay Singh in the first round if the world rankings are used to determine the seeds.

His fourth-place finish in the Masters at Augusta in April had put him 19th in the table of performances from this year’s majors, from which 11 places were decided, but all the withdrawals opened the door to him.

He made his debut in the championship in 1981 – when the winner’s cheque was €43,700 – and would have made more than seven appearances but for the fact that back problems prevented him playing 36 holes in a day.

Now he has another chance to hit the headlines as a player rather than a non-playing catain.

Langer was in charge for the record-breaking 18 1/2-9 1/2 win over the Americans two weeks ago and, having said beforehand he would be captain for only the one match, admitted afterwards that if he was asked to continue he would consider it.

Maybe a good performance at Wentworth, though, will persuade him that he could yet equal Nick Faldo’s record of 11 caps at the K Club near Dublin in 2006 and for that reason will hand over the reins to somebody else – maybe even Faldo, who this week joined Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle in declaring his interest in the job.

One of his deputies at Oakland Hills, Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn, was delighted with his 68 yesterday.

“The way the team played it was very difficult for me to see how I was going to beat them in the near future,” said Bjorn.

But yesterday he tucked in just behind Luke Donald, Garcia and Jimenez, level with Westwood as well as Woods and ahead of Padraig Harrington, David Howell, Paul McGinley, Darren Clarke, Paul Casey and Thomas Levet.

It was leaders out last today, which meant Jimenez was paired with front-runner Hamilton and Garcia and Donald were re-united two weeks after their successful partnership.