Woods' struggles continue

Tiger Woods said he needed two great rounds to have any chance of getting back into the contention for the final major of the season.

But “great” would not be a description of how he played the first of his 36 remaining holes at Baltusrol today.

After squeezing into the weekend thanks to a closing birdie yesterday Woods resumed on four over par, a massive 12 strokes behind leader Phil Mickelson.

And the gap instantly became 13. The Masters and Open champion, who came to New Jersey to try to become the first player in golf history to win three majors in a season twice, blocked his drive under a tree.

His second was punched under the branches, but found a greenside bunker. He came out moderately to 10 feet and missed the putt.

Woods then had to save par on the second after missing that fairway as well and although he gave himself a birdie chance on the 503-yard par four third with two arrow-like shots the putt was a tough one and he did not read enough break on it.

At five over the world number one was joint 73rd of the 79 players who had made the cut and he was in need of a miracle just to feature on the leaderboard at any stage.

On a day of scorching heat and high humidity – thunderstorms were a possibility later on – Mickelson was not teeing off again until 3pm, three ahead of fellow American Jerry Kelly and four in front of Britain’s Lee Westwood, South African Rory Sabbatini and 1997 champion Davis Love.

Woods two-putted the short fourth over the lake - the lake he went in yesterday - and then got the first of a heap of birdies he was looking for.

At least he was avoiding the nightmare round being experienced by Kevin Sutherland, his playing partner the first two days after being called in on Tuesday as replacement for the injured Greg Norman.

Sutherland double-bogeyed the first and sixth and bogeyed the third, fourth and fifth to be seven over the day and 11 over for the tournament.

Canadian Mike Weir, winner of the Masters two years ago and the early front-runner on Thursday when he charged to three under, was back on eight over himself after also taking six on the first and then bogey fives at the third and fifth.

And club professional Ron Philo, whose caddie was his sister and women’s tour star Laura Diaz, double-bogeyed the third to slump to six over.

England’s Paul Casey, who qualified for the final two rounds by almost holing-in-one at his final hole yesterday, bogeyed the second to be five over.