Tiger claws his way up leaderboard

Tiger Woods has not yet taken to quoting Mark Twain. But, in view of a second round of 69 for a halfway 141 in the Players' Championship here on the Stadium Course yesterday, he could be forgiven for becoming rather irritated with recent talk of his golfing demise.

"If you really understood the game of golf, you would understand that I'm not really playing that badly," said the world number one, who birdied the 72nd hole for a dramatic victory at Bay Hill last weekend.

His most enthusiastic critics would have to concede that he had a point, even allowing for a ball in the water yesterday at the unforgiving 17th, where he ran up a five.

It seems odd, somehow, to think of Woods contributing to the 125,000 balls consigned to the deep on this hole every year. But water doesn't discriminate between modest club hackers and possibly the greatest player the game has seen.

Among the many things Woods claims to have learned about the media since coming on tour in August 1996, is their apparent fondness for hyperbole.

"The media does a wonderful job of exaggerating when I'm playing well and a wonderful job of exaggerating when I'm playing not so well."

If that is true, he should find this morning's reports especially interesting, given that yesterday's performance combined the good and the not so good. For instance, after starting on the 10th, his tee-shot at the 17th was the product of rank bad judgement, given that it came up short of a target area of 6,500 square feet, where the pin was located 20 yards in from the front. Yet he followed it with three straight birdies.

The first of these came at the 18th, which he had double-bogeyed on Thursday, when he drove into the water. On this occasion there wasn't even the slightest flirtation with the dreaded deep as the ball sailed into the rough on the right.

From there, Woods hit a glorious approach to six feet for a remarkable birdie.

Further birdies came at the first and second and he chiselled out solid pars from there to the end. Meanwhile, moderate accuracy off the tee - he hit nine out of 14 fairways - was offset by an excellent putting round in which he used the blade only 27 times.

So, what happened at the 17th? "It's imperative to get the right trajectory there, but I was trying a play a little arm shot with an eight iron and I flew it too high," he said.

What did he think of the little terror? "It's wonderful for the fans but the players don't really like it," he replied. "There should always be a bail out on a good par three."

The view was endorsed by the 1988 champion, Mark McCumber, who is now a leading golf-course architect. "If I built you a hole in Phoenix and drew a white, out-of-bounds line around the green, it would play the same way this one plays. Tiger is right. Every great golf hole should have some place to bail out and stay alive."

And the 18th? "I can't hit a two iron off the tee there in these conditions; the ball would just stop," said Woods. "So I've decided to go with a three wood, hitting it along the line of the water. It worked OK today."

He went on: "This is a very difficult golf course where you've got to pay attention and know where to miss. It was a day for patience. I didn't hit as many good shots as I did yesterday, but I hit some nice putts."

And there was considerable comfort in knowing that things won't be getting any easier for his rivals.