ATLANTA -- Standing on the fourth green and already bathed in sweat, Tiger Woods motioned to his caddie and mumbled something that only a few folks heard along the gallery ropes.
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| Tiger Woods finishes things off with a birdie on No. 18. (AP) |
Then again, it might have been, "Can I get an ovation?"
After all, a moment later, Woods began one of the hottest stretches of his life, smoking the front nine at East Lake Golf Club with a career-low 28 Friday to storm to a three-stroke lead over Woody Austin at 13 under at the Tour Championship.
Even for a player whose theatrics are rarely a surprise, his six-hole streak was a deafening lightning strike few saw coming, really. After opening his second round with three mundane pars, Woods took a cool sip of his sports drink and rolled in a fairly tame 10-footer for a birdie on the fourth.
For the next 75 minutes, he could do no wrong. He finished with a 7-under 63, but it was the front nine in particular that was sublime, surreal -- and occasionally stupid.
He birdied five consecutive holes and then rolled in a rollicking 70-footer for an eagle to establish the best nine-hole total of his career. Four times previously over his 11-year career, he'd posted a 29.
It all happened so abruptly, he seemed to lose track.
"To be honest, I didn't really know I did it until I signed the scorecard," he said. To be both brutally honest and realistic, the tournament and the $10 million FedEx Cup race are probably settled. Woods doesn't give up leads often -- he has won 29 of 35 times when holding at least a share of the 36-hole lead -- and his four closest pursuers in the FedEx points race are all five shots back or more. He has won three of his past four starts, finished second in the other, and mustered 10 birdies and an eagle in the 25 holes he played Friday.
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The second-round insanity began in earnest on the fifth hole, when Woods shoved his drive into the rough and hacked his approach into a greenside bunker. Playing partner Steve Stricker, steady as ever, found the fairway and the green in regulation and was staring at a birdie putt.
Woods climbed into the bunker and found the ball was half buried in sand, not to mention 20 yards from the flag. He couldn't even see the bottom of the stick.
"I was just trying to get the ball within 10 or 15 feet," he said. "By the crowd's reaction, I thought it came screaming in there and hit the flag and ricocheted off and I had a one-foot putt or something. Then I got up there and it was gone."
