Sport
Will this tour be Tiger Woods comeback?
Tiger Woods reacts to his birdie putt. PHOTO/Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Tiger Woods is in a place he hasn’t been in more than two years, in the lead on the PGA Tour going into the weekend.
Woods ran off four consecutive birdies early in his round Friday and made short work of the par-5s on his way to a 7-under 65, giving him a share of the lead with Charlie Wi (68), one shot better than Graeme McDowell and Jason Dufner at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
It’s the first time since the 2009 Tour Championship that Woods has been the 36-hole leader. He also had the 36-hole lead in the Australian Open four months ago and finished third.
Woods is a six-time winner at Bay Hill. He looked closer than ever to winning a tour event, any tour, for the first time since November 2009.
Wi closed with a birdie at the final hole to get to 10 under with Woods.
Before Woods’ surge, McDowell (9-under 63) was the story of the day.
McDowell faced an impossible encore at this time a year ago. He was the U.S. Open champion, the Ryder Cup hero in Wales, and he finished his dream season with a record comeback against Woods. He knew something was wrong when he opened with an 80 at Bay Hill and missed the cut.
“That 80 was a wake-up call, but I didn’t wake up for another four months or so,” McDowell said. “It was more of the panic button. It was a pretty awful four or five months for me. “But like I say, I feel like you learn more from those types of experiences than you do from shooting 63 at Bay Hill. There’s not much to learn out there except that if you play great and hole some putts, you can go low.”
Dufner has looked solid through the Florida swing. If the lead holds, it would be the fifth time in 14 rounds in Florida that he has been atop the leaderboard – yet never on a Sunday. Dufner is still looking for his first PGA Tour win.
“The biggest thing is I’m just really comfortable with where my game is at right now,” Dufner said. I think any given day, I can go out and shoot 5 or 6 under, do it pretty comfortably. If the putter were to get hot, I feel like I could shoot some lower scores.
“There has not been a lot of stressful situations that last two or three weeks.”
Sergio Garcia shot a 67 and was in the group at 5-under 139 that included Bubba Watson (70) and past champion Vijay Singh (68). Ian Poulter and defending champion Martin Laird were at 140.
“If you were swinging well, you could score out there,” Garcia said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.