Woods takes lead, briefly, during 2nd successful round
One of the biggest cheers at the Hero World Challenge came from seeing the name Tiger Woods moved to the top of the leaderboard. It just wasn’t there for long. In another impressive showing in his latest comeback from back surgeries, Woods built on a solid start with a 31 on the front nine at Albany Golf Club in Nassau, Bahamas, that briefly gave him the lead Friday. He stalled on the back nine with two bogeys and not enough birdie chances, and he settled for a 4-under-par 68.
“Successful,” Woods said, when asked to describe his round in one word.
When the second round ended, Woods was five shots behind Charley Hoffman, who had a 63 that might have sent fans into a frenzy had they been watching.
Hoffman made 12 birdies, closing with five in a row . He was at 12-under 132 and had a three-shot lead over Jordan Spieth (67) and Tommy Fleetwood (69). Hoffman made only one par over his final 12 holes to go with eight birdies and three bogeys.
But this week, a holiday exhibition with an 18-man field and no cut, is all about Woods, who is making his first start in 10 months.
He opened with three birdies in four holes. He made three good pars, one of them having to chip up the slope from a thin lie on No. 8, and then really raised hopes with his eagle on the par-5 ninth, set up by a 3-wood into the wind from 265 yards.
“Hit up in the air and took something off of it and cut it back into the wind,” he said.
He made the 20-foot putt to reach 8 under. Behind him, Hoffman made bogey on the par-3 eighth. Woods was alone in the lead, and the workers at the white scoreboard to the left of the green quickly moved his name to the top as some 100 people — that constitutes a large gallery this week — began cheering.
But with Hoffman making his run, Spieth chipping in for birdie and setting up another with a tough chip, and Fleetwood overcoming a double bogey-bogey start to his back nine with three straight birdies, Woods fell behind.
Woods has 79 victories on the PGA Tour, compared with 81 for the rest of the field. He hasn’t won in more than four years. Briefly: Jordan Zunic shot a course-record-tying 8-under 64 on Saturday to take a threestroke lead after three rounds of the Australian PGA Championship in Gold Coast. Zunic needed birdies on his final two holes for a 59, but bogeyed the 17th and double-bogeyed the 18th. Cameron Smith was in second place after a 67 with Adam Bland a further stroke behind after a 71 . ... Arjun Atwal followed up his course-record 62 with a 1-under 70 to move to 10 under overall and a one-shot lead after two rounds of the Mauritius Open in Bel Ombre.