Woods puts himself in contention at Open

Three-time Open champion Tiger Woods ominously declared he is right where he wants to be for this weekend at Royal Lytham.

The world number four, after a second successive 67, is four strokes behind surprise leader Brandt Snedeker and will go out in the penultimate group this afternoon just before his compatriot.

A typical birdie at the last, holing out from a greenside bunker, lifted Woods to six under and as he has not really extended himself so far this week – he hit only one driver off the tee yesterday – he remains the major threat.

“Overall I’m very pleased at where I’m at – I’m right there in the mix,” he said. “I figured I had a game plan that I thought would fit well on this golf course and I figured I could execute it.

“I’ve done that so far. It’s just patience on a golf course like this.

“I’m hitting the ball in the fairway and that’s the thing around this golf course – you just have to do that.

“You can’t control it out of the rough here and obviously the pot bunkers you can’t do anything but come out sideways.”

But although Woods has so far carefully managed his way around the rain-sodden links which punishes anything remotely off-line, he is by no means looking to minimise his losses.

“It’s demanding. You can take your chances but you’d better pull it off or be conservative and play to different spots,” the 14-time major winner added.

“It’s about commitment because most of the holes are on angles and the bunkers are staggered.”

His attitude was typified by his last shot of the day. Many in his position in wet sand close to the pin would have been concerned solely with escaping with a par four.

Woods always had eyes for the hole.

“It wasn’t as hard as it may have looked,” said Woods, who goes out with the relatively unknown Dane Thorbjorn Olsen this afternoon.

“Because I was on the up-slope I could take out that steepness coming off the bunker and land the ball on the flat.

“I just threw it up there, played about a cup outside the left and it landed on my spot and rolled to the right.”

Olesen had Woods on his mind as he also carded a three at the last for a 66 which lifted him to five under.

“As I walked down 18 I knew if I made a birdie I had a chance to play with Tiger. That was amazing,” said the 22-year-old, who won his first European Tour title in April.

“He’s been my idol since I was nine or 10 so it’s fantastic to have a chance to play with him and I’m really looking forward to it.”