The Open: Tiger Woods recovers from poor start to salvage 71 on day two
By Keith Jackson at Carnoustie
Last Updated: 21/07/18 5:23pm
Tiger Woods was happy with his recovery from a torrid start to his second round at The Open, although admitted he will need to "clean up" his game over the weekend.
Woods looked far from comfortable early on in the persistent morning rain at Carnoustie and came within inches of causing injury to the spectators at the second, where he carved his drive into a bank of thick rough on the right.
The 42-year-old asked the marshals to move the fans back as he attempted an ambitious second rather than pitch back to the fairway with his ball significantly above his feet, and the move backfired.
Woods did not make the desired contact and his ball came out low and fast towards the gallery, although it veered left just in time to negate the need for him to hand over a signed glove to a wounded onlooker.
He would go on to salvage a bogey before dropping to two over when he three-putted the next, but he regained his composure to hit back with consecutive birdies only to give another shot away at the ninth.
Woods responded with a birdie at the 11th and, after an excellent par save at 13, two-putted from 25 feet to pick up another shot at the long 14th before blotting his card again when he missed the green at 16.
The 14-time major champion looked likely to end the day in red figures as he clipped a superb approach to five feet at the last, but he misjudged the break on the putt and tapped in for a 71 to remain where he started the round - level par.
"I could have cleaned up the round just a little bit," said Woods, who is playing in The Open for the first time since 2015. "I got off to not exactly the best start, being two over through three, but I got it back.
"The golf course was a little bit softer today, obviously. It rained, and we were able to get the ball down a little bit further, control the ball on the ground a little bit easier today, which was nice, and certainly birdies could be had out there.
"I played a little bit better yesterday, today wasn't quite as good, but I finally birdied a par-five so that's a positive. Right now I'm six back, and by the day's end, I think I'll be more than that. It will be a pretty packed leaderboard, and I'm certainly right there in it."
On the incident at the second, Woods added: "I kept moving them back, if you noticed, I moved them back about 40 yards. I was trying to play for the grass to wrap the shaft around there and hit it left, and I was just trying to hold the face open as much as I possibly could.
"But it grabbed the shaft and smothered it, and I was very, very fortunate that it got far enough down there where I had a full wedge into the green."
