Tiger turns making cut into high drama

SPRINGFIELD, N.J. - Only Tiger Woods can make winning majors seem boring but surviving the cut look like a three-act Broadway drama.

On a day when Phil Mickelson fired seven birdies, one eagle, two bogeys and a double bogey to shoot a tournament-best 65 and stake a commanding three-shot lead entering the weekend, Woods stole the show by simply drawing within 12 strokes of Lefty.

Even at his worst, the reigning Masters Tournament and British Open champion is still the best theater in the game. Sweating through his shirt at the first tee on a sweltering afternoon in New Jersey, Woods embarked on a wild ride that took everyone along with him.

"It must be hot out there, because Tiger is in great shape and he is sweating," said TNT guest analyst Charles Barkley. "When skinny people sweat, you know it's hot."

It was simmering before his day even started. Woods was already at the center of the biggest mystery in the shadow of Baltusrol Mountain since the club's namesake was dragged from his bed, beaten, bound and left naked and dead in an icy puddle below a snow bank in 1831.

No one was ever convicted for the murder of farmer Baltus Roll, and no one will ever know the answer of Woods' mysteriously embedded ball on Thursday.

After a first-round 75 that ranked as Woods' worst score since the first round of the previous year's PGA at Whistling Straits, Woods woke up to published accusations in The Star-Ledger of Newark that his caddie, Stevie Williams, might have been the culprit who stepped on Tiger's ball in a hazard the day before. The scent of potential disqualification hung in the air.

Williams - who has a history of violence against cameras - claimed a TV camera crew member must have stepped on the ball. But a reporting witness claimed that Williams was the only person to walk in the vicinity where the ball was ultimately found in the very spot where Stevie found the ball embedded.

Cameras, ironically, came to Williams' aid - if only inconclusively. PGA officials reviewed videotape and determined there was no evidence of anyone stepping on the ball and Woods teed off in the second round trying to play his way back into the tournament.

That's when things got really got weird. After a birdie at the first, Woods went in reverse with three consecutive bogeys that left him not only 15 shots off of Mickelson's lead but three below the projected cut line.

Woods started falling all over the place. On the par-3 fourth, where Woods hit into the pond, a massive limb from an ancient red oak snapped off and injured three people.

You had to wonder if this was finally the day when Tiger would miss a major cut.

"It's going to go down to 18 whether he makes the cut today," predicted Barkley while Woods was still 7-over with nine holes to play. "He won't ever give up."

And so it was, just like Whistling Straits a year ago, that Tiger put on another cut show.

Back-to-back birdies on 11 and 12 got him to the brink of the cut line, and another birdie at 15 had him seemingly safely in with the two closing par 5s still left.

But the drama wasn't over. A monstrously perfect drive on the 652-yard 17th hole put Woods in position to go for a green that's been hit in two shots by only two other players ever - the last being John Daly in the 1993 U.S. Open. Woods hit a high 3-wood that missed the green hole high by a few feet left, and he assumed it would leave him with a fairly simple bunker shot to make a potential birdie.

A cruel hard-left bounce, however, left Woods' ball under the far lip with only an option of hitting away from the hole to the rough between two bunkers. When he saw his fate, Woods let fly a few fine-inducing profanities before angrily grabbing a towel to scream into.

"What a wonderful bounce that was, wasn't it?" said Woods. "I couldn't do anything."

A chip to 10 feet and a lip-out left Woods staring at his first major weekend off as a professional. Just as Barkley said, it came down to the 18th - where the aforementioned mystery took place the day before.

This time, Woods striped a drive, smoothed an approach and casually two-putted for a birdie that maintained his slim hopes of winning a third major in 2005.

"You've got to suck it up and hit two good golf shots, and that's what I'm really proud of," said the world's No. 1 grinder.

So all of the copy that was poised on laptops waiting to get sent got cut instead of the 10-time major winner.

"We had to disappoint you guys," Woods said of all the trashed cut stories. "You just couldn't write that article."

Mickelson, the beloved favorite of the New York metropolitan galleries, got a pat on the back for his great day before being overshadowed by Tiger's afternoon soap opera. He'll rest a little uneasier on the lead knowing that by the time he takes the tee today, Woods has the chance to play himself back into the hunt.

"I'll be setting the pins for Phil and the boys, make sure the dew is swept off and everything is nice and neat," Woods said before adding a little juice.

"I've snuck in before and won the tournament," he warned. "Hopefully ... I can post a low one and at least get myself in some type of hope going into Sunday."

If nothing else, Tiger is good for a morning matinee.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.