Tiger builds lead with birdie start

MELBOURNE, Australia – Tiger Woods opened with two birdies, saved his round with two pars and wound up with a 4-under 68 on Friday to build a three-shot lead going into the weekend of the Australian Masters.

It was the fourth straight tournament in which Woods has had the 36-hole lead, although his only victory during that stretch came at the BMW Championship outside Chicago in September. He lost the last two times, including last week in Shanghai at the HSBC Champions.

Woods was at 10-under 134, three shots clear of an American – Jason Dufner – and a pair of Australians in Greg Chalmers and James Nitties, both of whom dropped shots on the 17th hole that cost them a spot in the final group Saturday with Woods.

Before another enthusiastic crowd that topped 24,000 people who endured hot sunshine and dust from so much traffic along sandy paths at Kingston Heath, Woods quickly regained the lead from Dufner, who shot his 67 in the morning to finish at 7-under 137.

He putted up the slope onto the green for a 3-foot birdie on the par-5 first, then changed clubs three times in the shifting wind before stuffing his approach to 2 feet on the second.

Woods lost his swing late in the round, twice slamming his driver into the ground as one shot sailed to the left and another to the right, and he also missed birdie putts of 10 feet on the 15th and 6 feet on the 16th that could have expanded his lead.

What saved him were two pars.

He chipped 15 feet past the flag on the ninth and made the putt coming back, then escaped more trouble on the par-5 14th, which played into the wind. Woods reached the green with a 3-iron on Thursday. This time, he had to hook a 3-wood around a gum tree on the left side of the fairway, and it clipped a branch and tumbled into a bunker, leaving him a 60-yard shot.

He did well to get onto the green, left his 40-foot birdie putt some 10 feet short, and made that for par.

“I didn’t do anything great,” Woods said. “But I had two big par putts to keep the round going.”

Nitties played behind Woods and his mammoth galleries for the second straight day and did well to keep pace until dropping a shot on the 17th. He wound up with a 71.        (AP)