The flag-snapping trade
winds were the least of anyone's worries today in the Mercedes Championships.
The second round of the new season brought the same old problem -- how to stop
Tiger Woods.
There appears to be no
solution.
Woods drove the green on
two par-4s and made the Plantation Course at Kapalua look like a pitch-and-putt
on his way to a 7-under 66 and what was looking like a runaway to his fifth consecutive
PGA Tour victory.
Not since Ben Hogan in
1953 has anyone fired off five straight victories, and it took Hogan-like control
on another blustery day in Maui for Woods to take such a commanding lead through
36 holes.
"I kept the ball low,"
Woods said. "I just tried to get the ball on the green and make some putts."
With birdies on five of
the last seven holes, Woods finished two rounds on the wind-ravaged Plantation
course at 9-under 137 and a four-stroke lead over Ernie Els.
"Some guys say, 'If I can
just keep it around par ...' But he knows that under any conditions, he can shoot
64," Tim Herron said.
Els had a 3-under 70 and
was at 141. Jesper Parnevik made another double bogey on No. 12 and finished
with a 74, five shots back of Woods. Jeff Sluman had a 72 and was another stroke
behind.
"Tiger ... this guy is
on fire," Els said. "He's got all the talent in the world. What can you do? You've
just got to stick to your guns. But he's got bigger guns that I have."
How big?
Woods seized control on
the tournament with a tee shot that bounded onto the green on the 373-yard 11th
hole, just past the left foot of Jim Furyk as he was lining up his putt. Should
Woods have warned him?
"I don't think I would
have heard him, being 500 yards away," Furyk said with a laugh. "The fans were
trying to tell me to watch out, but I didn't know what they were talking about."
Watch out, indeed!
Woods' 66 was more than
eight shots better than the average score on Friday, and only five other players
managed to break par. The dominance was similar to his final round at Valderrama,
where he won for the fourth straight time to close out a sensational season.
Seven weeks later, not
much has changed. The cast of contenders has changed, as it has every week. The
name at the top stays the same.
"The more you're in awe
of him, the more you can't beat him," Stuart Appleby said. "He has the potential
to be the best player in the last 50 years, no doubt about that. You could pat
him on the back, but what's the point? He knows how good he is."
Defending champion David
Duval had two bad swings on the par-5s, both of which led to bogeys, and wound
up with a 73 that left him at 145 - eight strokes back.
"I'm not surprised," Duval
said. "If you're playing well, you can shoot those type of scores any time."
Friday would have been
the perfect occasion for Els, the two-time U.S. Open champion, to show that he
was ready to raise his talent a notch to challenge Woods. Not this day.
The South African known
as "Big Easy" tried to keep pace with Woods, but he was no match, especially
off the tee.
Woods rode the wind to
a couple of phenomenal drives. The first came on the 398-yard sixth hole when
his tee shot sailed over a bunker in the middle of the fairway, caught the downslope
and stopped 50 feet from the pin.
Parnevik was tied with
Woods for much of the round, but he didn't drive the green on any par-4s. In
fact, the Swede hit his tee shot on No. 12 in the same shrubs that led to double
bogey in the first round.
Notah Begay, a teammate
of Woods at Stanford, also made a run until he took a triple bogey and a quadruple
bogey on the back nine, going from three shots off the lead to 11 shots back
in the span of two holes.
Begay knows as well as
anyone what to expect from Woods. Asked if he was surprised to see Woods eating
up an otherwise difficult golf course, Begay simply smiled.
