Woods safely makes the cut at PGA Championship

Published>Sat, Aug 14 10 10:56 PM

Tiger Woods birdied three of his last nine holes to survive the cut at the U.S. PGA Championship on Saturday and remain in contention to win the last major of the year.

Woods, one of 78 players who returned to the Whistling Straits course early to complete their second rounds, shot a two-under-par 70 to reach the halfway stage at three-under.

That left him in a tie for 21st place, five strokes behind overnight leader Matt Kuchar and four behind second-placed Nick Watney.

JB Holmes (66) and Jim Furyk (68) leapfrogged their way up the congested leaderboard into a tie for third place at six under, one clear of a group of 10 players that included Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy and Fiji's Vijay Singh (66), a former two-time winner who was playing in the same group as Woods.

Woods has not won any tournament since returning to the game earlier this year in full media glare in the fall-out after revelations about his private life.

The American struggled for accuracy off the tee on Saturday but scrambled well to stay in the hunt.

"I'm not hitting it well here," Woods said. "(But) I'm putting well and I'm right in the ball game."

The winners of the last two majors, South Africa's British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen and Northern Ireland's U.S. Open winner Graeme McDowell, both missed the cut at one over along with last year's PGA winner, South Korean Yang Yong-eun.

More than six hours of play were lost on the first two days because of heavy morning fog but conditions were perfect on Saturday, allowing tournament officials to make up some lost time.

They announced that the third round would be played in groups of three and played off split tees to help get the tournament back on schedule for Sunday's final round.

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