On a links it’s all very much in the lap of the Gods.”For a while yesterday it was Garbutt, rather than Faldo, who experienced the comfort of such a lap.. Sergio Garcia, who finished last a year ago, and Paul Lawrie, last year’s winner, found their roles reversed at St Andrews today. Sergio Garcia, who finished last a year ago, and Paul Lawrie, last year’s winner, found their roles reversed at St Andrews today.
While Garcia built a challenge for the Open championship with three birdies in his first seven holes, Lawrie’s reign as champion was stuttering to a halt.The 31-year-old Scot, who refused to blame his poor performance on a wrist injury suffered when a youngster he was coaching hit him, probably needed a 66 to survive the halfway cut.But he could manage only a level par front nine of 36 and then double-bogeyed the 314-yard 12th. It left him eight over – 16 strokes behind playing partner Fred Couples.The 40-year-old American, who sot 70 on his first day, birdied the second, fourth, seventh and eighth for an outward 32, and picked up further shots on the 14th and 15th to take the lead from compatriot Steve Flesch.Left-hander Flesch, joint second overnight with Tiger Woods a shot behind Ernie Els, was two ahead at eight under after an eagle at the 14th, but then drove into the Sutherland pot bunker at the next, bogeyed and fell back into a tie with Garcia.Els failed to keep up the momentum of his opening 66, three-putting the 397-yard third.

His second putt was from less than three feet.Woods was among the later starters, but 20-year-old Garcia, runner-up to the world number one at the US PGA championship last August, followed up his 68 by pitching to six feet on the first and then two-putting the 568-yard fifth. An 18-footer on the seventh brought him alongside Flesch.Van de Velde kept himself in the hunt to make amends for last year. Only one under overnight he birdied the fifth, seventh and ninth to improve to four under and joint sixth place with a group which also included Masters champion Vijay Singh and yet to tee off Padraig Harrington and Ian Garbutt.The axe was likely to fall at level par tonight.. There were times, we are told, though not by an avalanche of witnesses, when Pele performed an inelegant act on a football field and the whole world saw that Muhammad Ali’s most famous victory, over George Foreman, required some work that owed its inspiration as much to a back alley as Mount Olympus.

There were times, we are told, though not by an avalanche of witnesses, when Pele performed an inelegant act on a football field and the whole world saw that Muhammad Ali’s most famous victory, over George Foreman, required some work that owed its inspiration as much to a back alley as Mount Olympus.
Genius finds a way, and for a reminder of this you needed only to be in the company of Tiger Woods at the Road Hole yesterday.He played a shot out of the rough which was less than aesthetically perfect, a fact which was underlined at its completion by the narrow avoidance of landing his right knee on the point of his chin. Inelegant? Harpo Marx has displayed more natural grace, but then he was merely walking over furniture.The Tiger was putting his unique stamp on a round of 67 which came as near to an immediate annexation of the Millennium Open as good manners permit.Until his poor tee shot at the 17th, Woods’ control over his environment, his ability to correct shortfalls of position created by sometimes less than perfect iron play, was simply eerie. He seemed proofed against damaging error, and the reality of that impression was surely established by his response to the late-flowering crisis in an otherwise stunningly composed handling of the pressure that inevitably accompanied his 15-strokevictory at the US Open.He will play countless rounds of more spectacle and gunsmoke. He will explore the reaches of his talent at far more depth and consistency. But you have to doubt that he will ever improve much on the sense of a young man so totally at peace with the challenge before him. They say that youth is wasted on the young but perhaps they never heard of Tiger Woods.As is his habit, he supplied a detailed account of the thought process and the execution of a shot which saved both par and golf’s nearest thing to a doctrine of infallibility.

“I was trying to hit hard with my right hand, then again hold on with the left,” he said. “You have to open up the face because you know the grass is not going to grab the club head; it is going to grab the shaft That’s the trick to it You need to hit hard, hold on so you don’t trip it. It was a delicate balance I was trying to find, trying to hang on.”The Tiger hung on, all right As he explained, the resulting shot fulfilled all its aims. It took him to the foot of the green and the chance to make a lagging putt, which provoked roars from the crowd and a burst of hand-clapping from caddie Steve Williams. Woods was asked about the excited reaction of his caddie and he mugged surprise, opening his eyes wide “Well, it was a good shot,” he said.”It all worked. I was trying to put the shot from the rough to the right side of the hump in the middle, and putt down to the green. I was able to do that, did it perfect.” Overall, perfection was not the word you reached for, surprisingly enough, after a round which made a statement of professionalism that was almost surreal – and provided still more evidence that Woods is indeed the player of the ages who, barring the misadventures of injury and re-directed ambition, will surely sweep beyond the extraordinary achievements of Jack Nicklaus.