Pride leads, Woods falters

Tiger Woods uncoiled his body with frightening speed, launching a drive that sailed so far down the right side of the fairway that fans must have wondered if it would ever come back to earth.

That was the problem. It never did.

With a ball lodged 20 feet high in the trees, Woods wound up with a triple bogey to fall seven strokes behind Dicky Pride and a bunch of other unlikely suspects at the top of the leaderboard today after two rounds of the Canadian Open.

The good news?

He gets to come back Saturday, still in the hunt to become the first player in 50 years to win golf's third-oldest national championship twice in a row.

``Anybody under par has a chance to win,'' Woods said.

Just about everybody who teed off early today in calm conditions was well under par, a record assault on the Blue Course at Royal Montreal Golf Club.

Pride made three straight birdies on the back nine and finished at 64, tying his career low round and giving him the course record.

The record lasted five minutes.

Scott Verplank, the first rookie to be a captain's pick for the Ryder Cup, birdied his last three holes for a 63. About an hour later, Canadian David Morland IV matched the 63.

When a wild day final came to an end, Pride no longer had the course record, only the lead.

``I've hit the ball solid and I'm putting well, so I'm giving myself opportunities to make birdie and that's kind of what you need to do,'' said Pride, who hasn't finished better than 46th all year and was the 36-hole leader for the first time in his career.

He was at 131 and had a one-stroke lead over Morland and Matt Gogel, who had a 67 despite playing in the afternoon when Royal Montreal became hard and crusty and difficult to navigate in swirling conditions.

Morland has a chance to become the first Canadian to win his national golf championship since Pat Fletcher in 1954.

His first memory of the Canadian Open was in 1986 when he was a 14-year-old volunteer in the media center. That was the year Greg Norman had a 62 in the third round at Glen Abbey.

``I thought, 'How could someone shoot 62 on that golf course?''' he said.

Others were wondering the same thing about Morland and Verplank. The explanation was simple -- no wind, no problems. Six players who had early times shot 65 or better, which previously was the course record.

It was quite a different test in the afternoon.

Vijay Singh missed the cut after rounds of 72-71, ending the second-longest streak among active players at 24.

Leading that list is Woods, who made the cut for the 76th straight PGA Tour event. Royal Montreal is the only course where he missed a cut, at the 1997 Canadian Open, and that was never really in question.

But a bizarre triple bogey on No. 2 -- his 11th hole -- made it interesting.

Woods hit driver down the right side and when he finished walking 320 yards there was no ball to be found. He looked in the rough and over to the right, then resigned himself to a long walk back to the tee box.

That's when the crowd started yelling and pointing to a tree. There was a ball nestled high in the pines, but Woods couldn't identify it as his, ``and I wasn't about to climb the tree to do that.''

Turns out it wasn't his, anyway. Fans shook it loose -- it was a Titleist. After he hit his tee shot again, another ball was spotted. The Nike swoosh could be seen through a camera lens, but that wasn't enough identification and it was too late, anyway.

Still, fans lobbed liter-sized bottles of water and hurled apples into the tree trying to jar it loose. Woods hit his second tee shot in about the same spot, pitched from the rough through the green, chunked a chip and two-putted for a 7.

``Tiger, you're ball is in the tree,'' a fan shouted.

``It's too late,'' Woods muttered, clearly annoyed. He missed his next three fairways and hit only six out of 14 for the round, unable to get anything going.

``I hung in there,'' Woods said after his round.

Bob Estes, who went wire-to-wire to win in Memphis this year, had a 65 in the morning and was at 134 with Paul Gow and Mark O'Meara, who hasn't won anything since the Masters and British Open three years ago.

Steve Jones, who won the Canadian Open the last time it was played at Royal Montreal, was another stroke back after a 68, along with Match Play champion Steve Stricker.

Divots: Joel Edwards, coming off his first victory last week in Vancouver, was in jeopardy of missing the cut until playing his final 11 holes in 4 under. That was no small task considering he was playing with Woods and had to deal with a horde of photographers unaware that anyone else was playing golf. As Edwards was about to hit his approach on No. 2, three photographers ran across the fairway about 50 yards in front of him. ``It was a circus,'' Edwards said. ``But it was fun. I'd like to play with him again.'' ... Gareth Paddison of New Zealand was the only amateur to make the cut, at 137. ... Now that Singh's cut streak is over, the next two players behind Woods' 76 are David Duval and PaulAzinger at 14 in a row.

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