Woods faces battle for title

Tiger Woods, golf’s greatest-ever front-runner, looks like having to make a charge from behind on Sunday if he is to make it three Open victories in a row at Carnoustie.

After a second round 74 that began with him hitting into water just as he did at the start of the Ryder Cup last year the world number one trails Sergio Garcia by seven shots at halfway.

Woods’ 12 major wins have all come when he has held at least a share of top spot with 18 holes to play.

What might yet be in his favour is the prediction of torrential rain arriving on the Scottish links during Saturday.

Because he is only one over par compared to Garcia’s six under Woods will be teeing off much earlier and he could therefore have better conditions.

“I hit a lot of poor shots, but I hung in there,” he said. “The course is playing difficult and with the bad weather forecast you’ve just got to grind it out and try to stay away from big numbers.”

The worst shot was, of course, his iron off the first tee.

“It was basically a lack of commitment on the first tee. It was such a poor shot – the commitment wasn’t there and I didn’t back off.”

Being forced to reload on the first tee was not a new experience for him in the Open, however. In 2003 at Sandwich his very first shot of the week was lost in thick rough and he was taken back to the tee on a buggy.

Woods triple-bogeyed then – and lost the title by two – whereas he got out of the first this time with a double bogey six.

He birdied the second with a glorious approach, but dropped further shots on the fifth and eighth.

It could have been far worse for Woods. He was close to the out-of-bounds fence on the long sixth, scrambled a par at the ninth off a really poor approach into sand and then, for the second day running, had incredibly good fortune on the 466-yard 10th.

In his opening 69 it came with a free drop away from a bad lie in the rough because of television cables that strangely could not be moved – even the Royal and Ancient Club’s Director of Rules could not answer why today – and on his return he might easily have hit his approach into the Barry Burn.

Instead his ball came down in the trees, narrowly missing two people blissfully unaware that they could have been hit, and with a clear path to the flag he salvaged another par.

Woods then birdied the long 14th, but finished with a bogey after finding sand with his second.