Tiger up for fight

14 April 2012

It just doesn't seem to be quite happening for Tiger Woods. Looking like a champion heavyweight trying to rediscover his knock-out punch, the great one was clearly finding it difficult to understand why he was landing a couple of good shots and then suddenly swishing at thin air or getting bopped on the nose by this grand old course.

There had been moments here on the second morning when Woods looked as if he might be launching the charge which could eventually on Sunday make a nonsense of suggestions that he has lost his Midas touch. Then, inexplicably, he would offer a few signs of the sort of fallibility he never demonstrated when he was Open champion - and master of all the golfing universe - back in 2000.

It was not that he was in a bad position at one under par after 13 holes. Indeed, he was just four shots off the lead at that point and, still for the most part, putting like a divinity. It was just that, once again, he seemed unable to impose his old sorcery as he sought to end a drought which has seen him fail to win a strokeplay event all season and a major title for two years.

Yet witnessing his struggle with his game - and himself - you still ended up being forced to admire Woods's fighting spirit which has always been almost as important a quality as his sheer talent. On four occasions in 13 holes, he made par saves that you would have backed few others to make consistently.

On the opening day, Woods had missed fairway after fairway - as he has been doing all summer - and his putting had extricated him from trouble as it invariably has throughout his career. He had looked like a man on the verge of showcasing his greatness and you sensed that it would just need one converted 30 footer or a majestic long iron to spark him into action.

Yet, instead, over the first half a dozen holes flanking the coastline he offered a demonstration of consistent solidity rather than any real pyrotehnics.

The wind was more capricious and the outward half much more of a test than on the opening morning yet it still looked like a superb opportunity for Woods to post a score and put the pressure on the later starters, who were expected to possibly even run into some rain later in the afternoon. Woods again missed the fairway to the left at the first but his second was a shot which probably only he could play, tossed up high into the wind and landing soft just 15 ft from the pin. It seemed almost criminal when the putt slipped by on the left side.

On the par five fourth, he put his approach about 35 foot from the pin and very nearly sank the putt. He looked affronted that it hadn't dropped and looked even more angry when his drive at the next plonked into a bank of rough from where he did manage to conjure something a little special, smashing it out to the back of the green.

Two putting from 60 foot, he had landed his first birdie of the day and then when he splashed out of a bunker at the next hole and saved par with a 12 footer, he pumped his arm in triumph, the first sign that he was beginning to feel a bit happier with his game.

Even more promisingly, he came up with his second birdie in three holes at the par five sixth. A 601 yards, this is the longest hole in Open championship golf and Woods, smashing a drive some 350 yards down the fairway, neutered it quite easily.

Still, though, he ended up making heavy weather of finishing the job before sinking a crucial 12ft birdie putt. He had not played dazzlingly well yet now he was at three-under and just a couple of shots off the lead.

It all looked very ominous until, at the seventh hole, he had to get up and down from off the green and pushed his four-footer for par wide of the hole.

You simply could not credit this after the quality of the rest of his short game yet it was exactly the sort of inconsistency which has been driving Woods crazy this year.

At the ninth, he dropped another shot and, for the first time looked to be really losing patience with himself. Yet after escaping with pars at the 10th and 11th with some more impressive putting and another at the 12th which travelled all the way round the hole before dropping, and another at the 13th, he was still in there punching, the bout looking as if it could still go either way.

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