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Woods hits 66, gets in the hunt at US Open

By Eddie Pells (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-21 09:36

Sort of like his putt on No 17 at Pebble. Above the hole, 15 feet away, Woods said the only goal there was "don't throw away a great round now".

"The putt on 17 was a joke," he said. "I'm just trying to get it close and walk out of there. And it happened to go in."

Tiger Woods reacts to missing a birdie putt on the 14th hole during the third round of the US Open Golf Championship in Pebble Beach, California on June 19, 2010. [Agencies]

It's putts like those that can turn players into believers, though Woods never stopped believing, even when others might have.

His spiel after Friday's round, when he was seven strokes out of the lead, buried in 25th, sounded more canned than condensed soup: He was close, just needed to make a birdie or two, get to par and anything could happen at a US Open. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

He looked like nothing more than a dreamer after the second and third holes of Saturday's round. A pair of bogeys. The worse one came on No 3 when he drove the ball to 40 yards in front of the green, then tried to get a flop shot to lock up on the top right corner of the green - one of the many at Pebble that Tom Watson said made players feel like they were "putting over a herd of turtles".

The shot ran off the green, into the rough. The bogey ballooned Woods to 6-over par, nine shots behind a leader who hadn't even hit the course yet.

Eight birdies (and one more bogey) later, it was a different story. Woods had moved 22 spots up the leaderboard. Passed over Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and many others on the way. He looked like a genius. What's new?

Associated press