Major players come to the fore

GOLF: See, this is how it works. As the new kid on the block, you call it the next-best-thing to a major, but with all the trappings of one; provide a bulging purse of $8 million, and set up the course - tough - just like a major.

Then, you wait to see what unfolds. What has happened at the TPC at Sawgrass over the first two rounds of the Players championship is that most of the usual suspects, including you know who, have emerged as title contenders.

It's almost it should be, in fact, with just a few exceptions, among them Luke Donald, Colin Montgomerie and US Tour money leader Rory Sabbatini, who each capitulated to the course . . . and also a couple of Irishmen. Of the three Irish in the field, only one - Darren Clarke again showing his tenacity - survived into the weekend.

Padraig Harrington, who devoured freshly-cut orange segments in between too many shots in an effort to negate the effects of a head cold, and Paul McGinley, battling the debilitating effects of a hay fever remedy that left him weak and his legs "feeling like rubber," both missed the halfway cut. Harrington by two, McGinley by six.

If Clarke, who survived a poor day with the putter, but still shot a 70 to lie on 143, one-under, has much ground to make up over the weekend, he at least could appreciate better than anyone the effort conjured up by his playing partner Tiger Woods. The world's number one, who'd made a transcontinental trip midweek to visit his ailing father Earl in California, produced a second round 69 for 141.

"It's right in the ballgame," said Woods, who trailed midway leader Jim Furyk by five shots.

Furyk - who followed up his opening 65 with a 71 for 136, leaving him with a one shot lead over Stephen Ames and Adam Scott - was left on his own at the top of the leaderboard after a quite remarkable collapse by Davis Love III, who had shared the overnight lead.

In becoming living proof that this course can jump up and bite, and acting as a warning to contenders over the weekend, Love shot a second round 83 - 18 shots worst than his opening effort - which included a quadruple nine on his last hole, the ninth, to miss the cut by four shots. If he required any comfort in the collapse, it was that it wasn't the worst in recent history. Rod Pampling led the British Open at Carnoustie in 1999 after an opening 71, but then shot 86 in the second round to miss the cut.

You wouldn't expect any such dramatics from Woods, even allowing for his personal problems. And, at this stage, we shouldn't be surprised at Woods's mental capacity to focus on the job at hand, even if he conceded - like Clarke, whose wife Heather is in an ongoing battle with cancer - that his thoughts were with his father.

"We are in similarish positions," said Clarke, "(and) you've just got to get on with things and do the best that you can."

Harrington, too, was understanding of Woods's emotions. This time last year, Harrington's father, Paddy, had relapsed with a recurrence of oesophagus cancer. Asked how a player can remain focused on his game with a family illness at home, Harrington said: "You don't. It's not really a public thing, is it? It's a private matter. Tiger's the number one golfer in the world, the number one sportsman in the world, but when it comes down to something like that you are just an ordinary person.

"It is very difficult, I am sure, for Tiger. Your private life is very much out there in the spotlight and I didn't and I'm sure Tiger doesn't have anything enlightening to say on the matter. When it comes to bereavement in your family you are just a normal person, the same as anyone else. It doesn't give you any ability to handle it any better, with words of wisdom or anything like that.

"It is something you try and go through in private, but it is not very easy in the circumstances Tiger is going to be in. To be honest, getting out on the golf course is getting away from it in some ways. It is mentally draining and stressful outside it, but even on the course you are not going to get away from it.

"You can be professional on the golf course and do your thing and work through it. But it is difficult to go through it in the public eye."

Woods produced a round of 69 that could conceivably have been better, as he three-putted the 17th and then, having started on the 10th, missed short putts on the seventh and eighth. Still, he did pitch in for par on the ninth, his finishing hole, after driving into the water and afterwards had the good grace to admit, "it should have been a seven but ended up a five. With the winds swirling in these trees, you're going to have some bad breaks and hopefully you can get enough good ones."

If he is to win, though, Woods will have to play catch-up - with a lot of quality players between him and the leader. While Love fell away in an error-strewn round, Furyk remained solid to attain the midway lead.

But Australian Scott, the champion two years ago, and Ames were the big movers in yesterday's second round and moved to within a stroke of Furyk, with Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh among those in a group a shot further back.

And, on a day when the famous 17th claimed its usual number of victims, another of the course's par threes, the 13th, proved generous, yielding aces to Jesper Parnevik and Justin Leonard.