Tiger Woods moves up leaderboard with his lowest score at major since 2011

Woods birdied six of first 14 holes in tournament

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland – The idea of Tiger Woods as a majortournament threat, which flickered all along in golf imaginations even as it also spent much of this decade in a dormancy, returned fiercely on Saturday when Woods’s name appeared atop the British Open leader board. He had spent a third round in placid conditions by the North Sea making a steep, brisk climb.

By birdieing six of his first 14 holes while bogeying none, Woods had gone from even par and a crowded tie for 29th place into, temporarily, a tie for first in his first Open Championship appearance since 2015. When he closed with a crowd-pleasing, 5-under-par 66, it marked his lowest number in a major tournament since the 2011 Masters (60 major rounds ago), and his lowest on a weekend since the 2010 U.S. Open (29 such rounds ago). Suddenly, a leader board glittering with Jordan Spieth, Rory Mcilroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Zach Johnson and, for a while, Rickie Fowler, also had the name “Woods.”

By then, it looked like the big thing was just bragging.

“I played well today,” Woods said. “I really, really did.” At 42, 15 months after a fusion back surgery he has credited with rehabilitating him, he said, “It’s been a few years since I felt like this.”

Only at the par-3 16th hole, when Woods’s fine tee shot met with some unsentimental luck and rolled unkindly over to the right and off the green, did he find his first bogey. “I really didn’t hit a bad shot until 18,” said Woods, who got repayment from luck with his drive on the