Woods turns a great round into just a round

GOLF/Dubai Desert Classic: Tiger Woods, whose striving for perfection is beginning to make Mao's Long March to Shaanxi look like an afternoon stroll, attained fresh levels of misplaced self-reproach yesterday when he shot 66 around the Emirates club and walked off the 18th green looking like a man who had just found a dead skunk in the ball compartment of his bag.

To say he was mad as hell would be to give an overly negative impression of Beelzebub's place of rest. To suggest he was curt would be to misrepresent him as long-winded. Have you been this disappointed after shooting 66 before, Tiger?

"Yeah."

Can you tell us when?

"Firestone."

Which round?

"Last year."

For the uninitiated, Firestone is the very difficult course in Akron, Ohio, which hosts the NEC Invitational, a tournament which the world number one has won four times, including last year, when he shot an unsatisfactory 66 in the first round on his way to picking up a very satisfactory cheque of $1.3 million.

As was the case in Ohio, the problem yesterday was not the number of strokes Woods took to complete 18 holes, which even he could acknowledge moved him into prime position to win in Dubai for the first time in three visits, but that it could have been much much lower.

At one stage, when he played his first seven holes in seven-under, there was a serious possibility the European Tour was about to witness its first 59.

Woods parred the 17th hole - his eighth - but the next, a relatively easy par-five, held out the prospect of an eagle.

What it delivered was a six. A terrific drive which ran out of fairway and into patch of weeds. From there he knocked his second into the lake by the green.

He birdied the next three holes, but then his new knack for finding water in the desert surfaced again on the fourth when he hit his tee-shot into a lake to the right of the green on his way to a double bogey.

"I turned a great round of golf into a round of golf," he said, once he eventually rediscovered the will to form entire sentences.

It was a good day for the Irish contingent, though Rory McIlroy's second consecutive 72 left him outside the cut by just one shot. The teenager had five birdies in his round, but also threw in two double bogeys.

Peter Lawrie had seven birdies in a six-under-par 66 that left him tied for eighth on nine under par, just four shots off the leaders.

Darren Clarke and Damien McGrane are just one shot farther back. Clarke had five birdies in a second 68, while McGrane also shot 68, with six birdies and two bogeys.

Gary Murphy again struggled, this time for a 75 to miss the cut by some distance.

Woods' two-round total of 133, 11 under par, left him two shots behind the leaders Retief Goosen and Anders Hansen, both of whom had good moments on the course and uncomfortable moments away from it. For the Dane, the problems are diplomatic.

With his homeland all over the front pages here because of the cartoon controversy, he was understandably anxious to discuss his round rather than the geopolitical implications of a Danish player winning the premier tournament in the Middle East.

"It's a sad issue, but as for saying anything else, I'll leave that for the politicians," he mumbled before moving swiftly on to his nine-under-par 63.

"I couldn't have played any better. I just felt I could hit every shot. I felt I couldn't go wrong - a great feeling which I wish I could have every day."

For Goosen, the problems were entirely personal, after his three-year-old son, Leo, was involved in a car accident in London on Thursday afternoon. Both of the cars involved were written off, but happily no one was injured, although that did not stop the South African enduring a sleepless night.

He might have been tired, but he still managed to shoot a five-under 67, although, like Woods, he was not that impressed with himself.

"Actually, I was a bit lucky. The swing doesn't feel that great, I'm hitting the ball sideways," he shrugged.

The South African and the American will get the chance to compare their woes today, when they will play in the same three-ball as Hansen - a grouping that thwarted the hopes of Nick Dougherty.

The Englishman was scheduled to play alongside Woods for the first time in his career until darkness fell before the second round was completed, forcing the organisers to abandon the usual weekend two-ball format. "I guess it's just fate," he said about missing out on 18 with Tiger.

Given the way the Dougherty - also 66 and 11-under - has been playing for the past few months, it is safe to assume he will get another chance before too long.

And Ernie Els was on course to set a record of 70 successive European Tour cuts made as he was on eight under.