Tiger by 1 over Harrington and O’Hair

Yes,Tiger Woods is where he wants to be,at the top of the leadearboard, but he failed to separate himself from his contenders on the last 4 holes of the second round on Friday.

Woods shot 2 under par 68 for a -5 total,1 shot lead over Padraig Harrington and Sean O’Hair at -4, 2 over Ernie Els at -3 who had the best round of the day 66 and 3 over Kenny Perry(also 66),and Jerry Kelly(67).

On the last four holes Tiger could have blown the tournament open. At the par 5 15th where he put his second shot a little over 4 feet from the hole and missed the eagle putt,at the 16th his approach ended under 4 feet from the hole and he missed again,walking away with a disappointing par.What should have been -8 is -6 and Tiger,probably angry and rattled by the two missed short putts, hit an errand tee-shot at 17 but managed to save par.He wouldn’t do it at the par 3 18th when he left his chip shot second in the rough after sending a 3 iron in the stands.He made bogey 4 and Harrington who should have been a few shots behind is putting for a share of the lead. The Thursday night leader O’Hair didn’t play very well but 2 birdies at 15 and 16 made up for the 2 bogeys at 7 and 11 and he pulls within 1 shot with a level par round 70.

Stewart Cink was the big casualty in this second round,he had a share of the lead with Tiger at the turn and then sent 2 balls out-of-bounds off the 10th tee. He made 8 on the hole to go back to -1 where he ended the day T 7 with Jim Furyk,Phil Mickelson,Steve Marino,Angel Cabrera,David Toms,Jason Dufner and Lucas Glover.

With those uncharacteristic mistakes at the end of the round Tiger has given renewed hope to his pursuers for the next two days.None of the top 5 of the Fedex standings is out of the race,Furyk is 4 shots behind,Stricker and Z.Johnson 5 and Slocum 6.It is a difficult task but not impossible for any of them with 36 holes left to play.

Woods and Harrington will be paired Saturday for the 9th time this year,5 over the past two months, and Padraig enjoys the Company “You know you are going to be in contention,and you know you’re going to have a chance to win the tournament the more you play with Tiger.” That’s the right way to look at it as most of the time,to win any prestigious event,you’ll have to beat the world #1 over the weekend.

Tiger was fuming over the missed putts at 15 and 16 but was able to consider the big picture after his 7th consecutive round in the 60s: “The day in the whole was a good day,”said Woods “I shot under par and I got myself in the lead.”

Tiger didn’t run away with the tournament,his pursuers were all surprised and pleased and it’s great for the fans and the betting.We can expect a great battle during the weekend for the Fedex Cup and THE TOUR Championship title.Remember,Tiger squandered a 2-shot lead at the PGA Championship,these things have a way to stick to your mind and Harrington is hard to shake off.

Check out the pairings and the lines at BetPhoenix.com,it’s going to be fun.