Woods finds his game just in time
Updated: April 9, 2005, 10:56 PM ET
By Jason Sobel | ESPN.com
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- If you've seen the highlights -- well, maybe the lowlights -- ofTiger Woods this week, you've gotten an eyeful.
Turn on the television and there's Tiger putting his ball into Rae's Creek.
Woods followed his opening-round 74 with a second-round 66.
Click. Here he is putting one up a slope ... and watching it trickle all the way off the green.
Click. A 100-yard duck-hook off the tee.
Click. Trying to punch through some tree branches. Click. Off of pine straw. Click. From outside the ropes.
How can a player so good be so ... bad?
After all, an off day is one thing, but when the world's second-ranked golfer, a man with eight major titles to his credit, is being mocked on SportsCenter's "Not Top Plays" for his futility on a golf course, things have surely hit a low point.
"I putted the ball in the water. ... Roll it on the ground about 100 yards with a driver," Woods said of his two-day opening round in the Masters Tournament that resulted in a 2-over 74. "That's not very good.
"But you know, I kept telling myself, I kept hitting good golf shots and I would just mess it up, or I'd get a bad break. So just keep hanging in there, keep hitting quality golf shots and it will turn. And luckily, it turned."
It is a paean to his perseverance, a testament to his talent, that Tiger is not only in contention, but could very well be the favorite heading into Sunday's final 27 holes.
Don't say you missed it. Don't tell us you click, click, clicked away until all visions of Woods at his worst were out of sight, out of mind.
If so, you don't know him very well.
Woods stepped out of bed Saturday morning with 53 holes still to play. For Tiger, 53 holes is an eternity.
Need proof? He entered the day two strokes over par, but in one 11-hour span he played 26 holes, made 12 birdies and crept up the leaderboard with all the subtlety of, well, a tiger on the prowl, until he was in second place entering Sunday.
"All of a sudden, the momentum started to kind of build, I started making putts," Woods said. "My golf shots were just as good, but it just happened."
"It" is what separates Tiger Woods from the rest of the field. It's what tells him, after that 74, that he's still in the game. It's what propels him to a second-round 66. And then whispers in his ear, "Come on, you can do better than that."
And so he does. He comes out for his third round and birdies the second hole. And the third. And the seventh, eighth and ninth.
Woods is now right where he wants to be, in position to win his fourth green jacket, a mere four strokes behind leader Chris DiMarco with 27 holes left to play.
Those unseemly putts and crooked drives were an unfortunate beginning to the tournament, but they were just that -- the beginning.
The ending to this show will unfold on the greatest stage in golf
Just don't click away. You might miss something special.
Jason Sobel is ESPN.com's golf editor. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com
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