Tiger Woods' Lead Holds After Round 2 at Chevron

Tiger Woods, who is winless to date in 2010, has put two good rounds back-to-back at Sherwood Country Club to hold the lead at the Chevron World Challenge for the second day. 

In crafting a 65-66 start, Woods leads by four over Graeme McDowell and by five over Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald. Woods had birdies on eight of the ten par fives in the first two rounds and an eagle and a par on the others,

“I'm feeling very happy with the progress I've made,” Woods said after his round.” I felt like today it was important to take care of the par-fives again. There's 10 par-fives so far and I've played them 10-under, so that's pretty good.”

His only problem shot, it appears, is off the first tee where he has missed the fairway two days in a row.

“I hit a sweet little draw up the left side, and I thought it was going to be perfect because I was trying to get an angle to that back right pin,” he explained. “Clipped the tree and kicked all the way across the fairway into the rough. I'm like, oh, here we go.”

Woods still made par at one and then eagled the second, made four additional birdies and, importantly, no bogeys for a 66. Just as with the first round, the problem came halfway through.

“Today I hit a couple loose shots there in the middle part of the round, but I knew what the fix was, got it together and hit good shots after that,” Woods said. “It wasn't quite as sharp as I said yesterday was, but it was good enough. I also managed my game really well.”

Woods is not a stranger to having the lead, but this year has not been there, except for one round at Barclays in 2010. 

“It feels good. I've been here before, so it's not a strange feeling,” he said.

While some say, it’s only a late season event, this one gets world ranking points. For Woods, who has slipped off the top spot for the third time since taking it, a victory is important in his effort to regain standing as the world’s number one.

Odds and Ends

--- Woods wore a Stanford block S on his shirt to show support for the football team which has a good chance to be in a season-ending bowl game.

”We haven't been in this position in a very long time, so we're pretty ecstatic about it,” he said.

--- Paul Casey had a hole-in-one on the par three 12th. 

“Seven-iron,” he said, “just trying to drop it in a couple yards left to right because Nick (Watney) actually hit seven-iron and pulled it, and it went past the flag, and I knew that was just disaster going past the flag, so I tried to take some off of it.”

It was his second in competition. The first one came at the 2006 Ryder Cup in a foursomes match which Casey won with partner David Howell.  He secured a point for the European team winning 5 & 4 over when the ball went in the hole.