Hot on the Trail of Another Title

Woods Is One Shot Behind Ogilvy at CA Championship

MIAMI, March 21 -- It was a putt that seemingly started in Memphis and had to get to Chicago by way of Indianapolis -- a big, breaking right-to-left 24-footer at the treacherous ninth green, Tiger Woods's final hole of the second round in the wind-blown CA Championship on Friday at Doral.

Woods had studied a road map provided moments earlier by playing partner Louis Oosthuizen, who had barely missed a similar putt along the same circuitous line, and followed the young South African's path to perfection. The No. 1 player in the world began raising his putter in the air to celebrate with the ball still six feet from the cup, and when it dropped down for one last birdie on his card, Woods was momentarily tied for the lead following a spectacular two-eagle round of 6-under-par 66, the lowest score of the day.

By day's end, Woods, at 11-under 133, remained poised to contend for what could be his sixth straight PGA Tour victory of the season and seventh overall this year counting his win in Dubai on the European Tour. He will enter the weekend trailing Australian Geoff Ogilvy, still without a bogey in 36 holes on the Blue Monster, by a shot in the season's second World Golf Championships event, which is shaping up to be a three-player race.

With three birdies in his first five back nine holes, Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, came in with a 67 and was at 12-under 132. Late in the afternoon, fellow Aussie Adam Scott completed his second-round 68 for a 9-under 135. Scott began with birdies on four of his first five holes but ended badly with back-to-back bogeys, including a drive in the water at the 467-yard 18th hole.

Ogilvy, Woods and Scott will play in the final threesome Saturday, and their closest pursuers -- three players at 6-under 138 -- will start the third round six shots off the lead and five behind Woods. They'll tee off earlier than usual, with the last group of leaders starting at 10 a.m. because stormy weather has been predicted for later in the day. Tournament and NBC network officials want to complete 54 holes before conditions begin to deteriorate for the field of 81 players in an event that does not have a 36-hole cut.

Woods's demeanor walking off the course Friday was far different than 24 hours earlier, when a three-putt bogey on his final hole ruined an otherwise splendid opening round. He said that finish bothered him all the way back home, or at least on the drive to his yacht docked not far from the golf course, until he saw his nine-month-old daughter, Sam Alexis, on the boat.

"Sam came crawling, and then I don't even know what I shot after that," he said. "That's one of the cool things about seeing Sam when I go home."

There were plenty of cool moments in Woods's second round, starting with a 45-foot blast from a greenside bunker into the hole at the 603-yard 12th hole for his first eagle of the round. He described it as "just a simple little bunker shot. I kept telling myself, 'Make sure you hit it hard enough because it's uphill, into the wind and into the grain, make sure I fly it most of the way if not all the way to the hole. It came out; it landed. I was like, 'Okay, that looks pretty good.' About two feet out, it was center cut."

After making the turn to the front side, Woods took full advantage of the downwind 530-yard first hole. A 340-yard drive left him 189 yards to the flag, and his 7-iron started off right of the green and blew back toward the pin, landing six feet from the hole. He drained that eagle putt to get to 10 under, then gave a shot back when a wildly errant dead-left drive and a missed 10-footer led to the only bogey on his card at the 438-yard third hole.

At the 560-yard No. 8, his drive was in the left rough, and his second shot scooted over to the right rough. But his third shot wedge left him with an eight-footer, and he made that putt to get back to 10 under. Then came that final 24-footer at the 169-yard ninth -- the same distance covered by his winning putt at the 72nd hole last Sunday at Bay Hill. The roar was so loud, over on the nearby 18th green, Masters champion Zach Johnson had to back off his own birdie putt, knowing exactly what had just happened a few hundred yards away. To his credit, Johnson (72 -- 141) made his putt, as well.

Ogilvy was not totally enamored of his own round, insisting he had hit the ball better on Thursday, but he had no complaints after a dozen birdies and no bogeys in two days. Still, after hitting only three fairways and 10 greens in regulation Friday, he knows full well he'll have to improve his ball-striking over the weekend. His putter saved him Friday, with 11 one-putt greens and just 23 putts.

"It wasn't like I hit it horribly," he said. "It's quite tricky. It has to be such a precise shot to hit a lot of these fairways when it's blowing. Five or six drives I thought were on the fairway and kind of just trickled through [to the rough]. I'm hitting it well enough. You don't hit it perfect every day, and the rest of my game is solid enough."

Ogilvy has played with Woods on the weekend in the past and said he's almost always performed well, despite the swirling crowds and massive media presence inside the ropes. He was told that English bookmakers have made Woods the 1-to-2 favorite to win his sixth in a row, with Ogilvy and Scott listed at 5 to 1.

"That's reality," Ogilvy said. "He's won these last however many golf tournaments. He hasn't lost too many when in contention after two rounds. He hasn't lost too many at Doral. There's a lot of things in his favor. I mean everything is in his favor historically. Five to one? If I wasn't playing, maybe I'd have a go. . . . He obviously knows how to win a golf tournament. Seven in a row, six in a row? It's pretty impressive. I mean, that's a good career."