After an intriguing second round, the WGC – CA Championship looks likely to become a three horse race between the Australian duo of Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott and, surprise, surprise, Tiger Woods.
With conditions toughening up around the Blue Monster Course at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami, Ogilvy maintained his lead at the top of the leaderboard with a second round of five under par 67 for a 12 under total, one clear of the World Number One, who posted a best of the day 66.
Scott’s disappointing bogey-bogey finish left him trailing Ogilvy by three going into the third round, but the leading European Tour Member in the field will join the tournament leader and the Tiger in the final group on Saturday morning.
Anders Hansen, Robert Karlsson and Jeev Milkha Singh will be the second last match of the third round, but the trio of European Tour Members, tied together on six under par will have to either put in the performance of a lifetime or hope for an unprecedented collapse if they are to catch Ogilvy and Woods.
Ogilvy is relishing the prospect of going head to head with Woods, the 2006 US Open champion believing he has the experience and ability to give the world’s best a run for his money.
If that is not good enough, then the 30 year old has another suggestion as the rest of the world's top golfers seek to topple Tiger - voodoo!
“That was about the right score today,” said the Australian. “I played a lot better yesterday than I did today but I made a lot of putts and got up and down when I needed to.
“I like playing with Tiger – most of the time I have played pretty decent playing with him. How can you not enjoy playing with the guy who is on his way to becoming the best golfer of all time? It’s a thrill.
“Sometimes it can be a bit of a circus with everything that goes on around playing with him in terms of the TV cameras and journalists everywhere and sometimes it can be distracting, but other times it can lift you up to great heights – most of the time it seems to help me. Maybe Adam and I can put some Aussie voodoo or something in him!”
Woods’s second round finish was typical of the great man, starting with his birdie four on the par five eighth that he “got away with” before holing a brilliant 25 foot putt on the par three ninth to finish off his six under par 66 for an 11 under 132 halfway total.
“The last putt on the ninth broke a lot. After seeing Louis (Oosthuizen) hit his putt and that changed my read a little bit and it worked out pretty good. You could see it was breaking a lot, but all of a sudden it straightened out and then rocked back to the right for the last foot or two.”
