Westwood chances go in the dark

13 April 2012

Lee Westwood crashed out and Darren Clarke took an eight in semi-darkness as the US Open completed one of its longest days in Tulsa.  

But centre stage again belonged to Tiger Woods as he only just won a battle to survive the halfway cut having added a 71 to his opening round 74.

Woods finished the day nine adrift of the three surprise joint leaders, South African Retief Goosen and Americans Mark Brooks and JL Lewis.

And while he was relieved to be still alive, the world number one's hopes of an unprecedented fifth successive Major title were slim indeed.

Sergio Garcia was going nicely at two-under - he just got finished and shared fourth place with Stewart Cink - but Westwood tumbled out on 11-over-par and Clarke's calamity at the long 13th, where he put a four-iron and then a wedge into the lake, left him five-over with five to play in the morning.

Colin Montgomerie at one-over-par was the only British or Irish player in touch with the lead.

European Tour member Goosen set the target at five-under with scores of 66 and 70, his bogey at the last allowing those on six-over (Nick Faldo among them) to breathe more easily knowing that anybody 10 shots off the halfway lead qualifies.

Lewis, a 40-year-old with just one US Tour victory to his name, had successive 68s, while Brooks mounted his charge in the afternoon as the sun started to dry out the Southern Hills course.

He was six-under for the round after a mere 11 holes, but had to be content with parring the remaining seven.

After 11 holes of his second round at the course on which he had his highest-ever US Tour score five years ago (a 78), Woods stood six-over-par and joint 102nd of the 155 players.

Then came birdie putts of 25ft and 10ft on the next two greens, but when he bogeyed the 16th and went over the green at the 365-yard 17th the alarm bells were ringing again.

But fighter that he is, even when things are not going as well, he saved par there with a great chip and six-foot putt that sneaked into the side door, then parred the 466-yard last. It looked like being just good enough.

Montgomerie played 26 holes and said after adding a 70 to his opening 71: "It's just a shame I three-putted the 14th and 16th. You can win from one-over here, but I have to hole some more putts.

"I was watching Tiger behind me and it was interesting to see where he was going. Expect fireworks tomorrow."

Three double-bogeys in a nightmare four-hole stretch in the morning sent Faldo tumbling after he resumed on level-par.

Faldo messed up the ninth, 10th and 12th, finished with a 76 and finished six-over - right on the cut mark - after missing a five-foot birdie chance on the chance.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in