AT&T National round two: Tiger has it taped

Amazing the difference a bit of lead tape can make. Tiger Woods stuck it on his putter Friday and hey presto, a round of four under. It was his answer to greens playing a bit slow and sticky.

So Tiger’s back in contention, albeit six shots back, to put that special gloss on his new tournament’s first weekend (put a nice gloss on yesterday’s little bet on the cut too!). He might consider taking the tape off now. It’s looking to be pretty warm and sunny from here on and if so those greens are going to dry out and speed up.

He’s still got work to do to catch the leading pair, who are no strangers to holding a lead. K J Choi went wire-to-wire in his second PGA victory back in 2002 and has twice led from round two onwards. Stuart Appleby won start-to-finish at Houston last year.

This is a rare bright spot in Appleby’s year. He last led a round in the third at the Masters. But the stats show him and Choi giving the rest a clear lesson in how this course should be played. Choi even managed to miss just three fairways Friday. But it’s again his short game and putting that stand out.

So either this pair are going to have to falter in a big way over the weekend or someone in the chasing pack will have to significantly up their game.

Craig Kanada, a rather startling second, leads the field in both accuracy and strokeplay, but needs to find a hotter putter. I don’t see drying greens doing Vijay Singh a lot of favours either. While there’s a few interesting souls like Justin Rose and Jerry Kelly in the chasing pack, if Tiger can carry through Friday’s momentum he’s definitely the one to watch.

Apart from Todd Hamilton of course!

PS: Perhaps no big surprise that Phil Mickelson didn’t make it past the cut, but what about Adam Scott? His game seems to have gone to pieces since that awful shot into the water on the 14th at the St Jude. Hope it’s just a temporary blip.