ST. LOUIS — Tiger Woods returned from a second-round weather suspension to birdie three of his remaining 11 holes Saturday morning at Bellerive Country Club, finishing with a 4-under-par 66 that put him in a tie for 19th at the PGA Championship.
The third round was scheduled to begin early Saturday afternoon.
Woods, however, lamented two bogeys that were the result of makeable par putts from the 5-foot range.
“I missed two putts on 10 and 12 and that stopped momentum a bit,” he said in a brief interview before getting ready for the third round. “Hopefully I can go shoot a low one this afternoon.”
Woods completed 36 holes at 4-under 136 and is six strokes behind leader Gary Woodland, who set the PGA Championship 36-hole scoring record of 130. Kevin Kisner is in second, a shot back, with U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka tied with Rickie Fowler for third, two strokes behind.
Woods’ round resumed at 7 a.m. local time, 70 yards from the hole, middle of the eighth fairway for his third shot to the par-5. He knocked his wedge inside 5 feet and made the birdie putt.
He turned in 31, his lowest nine holes in a major championship since he began 2012’s The Open at Royal Lytham with 31. He tied for third at that tournament, his best finish at a major since 2009. But Bellerive is not Lytham. A 31 only helped Woods keep pace.
A whopping 62 players are under par through two rounds, and the 36-hole cut of 140 is the lowest in PGA Championship history dating to the start of stroke play for the event in 1958.
Woods missed the green at the 10th, then hit an average chip shot to 5 feet and missed. He rebounded with an easy birdie at the 11th, where he hit a wedge to 2 feet, but then bogeyed the 12th by three-putting from 100 feet. He hit 8 of 9 greens on the back nine.
While overnight rain softened the course even more, it also made it play long, leading to several lengthy approaches. He had to two-putt from 50 feet at the 15th and also from 90 feet at the 18th. His other birdie came at the par-5 17th, where he hit the green in two and two-putted from 30 feet.
In only one of Woods’ 14 major titles did he come from as far back as six shots with 36 holes remaining — the 2005 Masters.
“If you hit the ball in the right spots on the greens, there’s not a single putt out here that you are afraid of,” he said. “That’s why you can be aggressive.”
Source:ESPN
