Woods Goes the Distance for Decision

He didn’t win his match until the 18th hole and it was an unsettling feeling for Tiger Woods, who described his reaction this way: “Relief.”

You think Woods was relieved, what about ABC? What about the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship bigwigs? If Woods had lost, they might as well have canceled the whole thing and put some cooking show on instead.

To the relief of nearly everyone, with the obvious exception of Retief Goosen, Woods was not quite out the door Thursday at La Costa. No, the $5-million tournament still has its multimillion-dollar main attraction, which probably kept a bunch of people in suits from hurling themselves off the corporate tents.

Woods drove out of bounds on the second hole and into the gallery at No. 9, but played just well enough to stay close to Goosen, then accepted a gift at the last hole when the South African’s three-putt bogey gave Woods a 1-up victory.

“I didn’t really play my best,” Woods said. “I just hung around and was good enough just to advance. It’s just like playing an NCAA [basketball] tournament. You just want to keep going, keep advancing.”

That was the name of the game in Thursday’s second round, which happened to be the last round for Ernie Els, Jose Maria Olazabal, Colin Montgomerie, Justin Leonard, Lee Westwood, Tom Lehman and Mark O’Meara.

Bob Estes pulled a 1-up surprise over Els, the fifth-seeded player. Mark Calcavecchia’s 4-and-3 rout of Olazabal was also impressive, especially with Calcavecchia’s three birdies in the last five holes.

Calcavecchia seemed content, but he is often so hard on himself it’s difficult to tell.

“I only hit a couple of really horrendous putts, but other than that, I was pretty happy with it,” Calcavecchia said.

Second-ranked David Duval made only one birdie in the last seven holes, but it didn’t matter much because Tim Herron made only one birdie in all 17 holes. Duval’s 2-and-1 victory moved him into what is the first big-deal match of the tournament--a pairing with Sergio Garcia, the 20-year-old Spaniard, in today’s third round.

Garcia, golf’s superstar on training wheels, needed only 13 holes to overpower Mike Weir, 7 and 6. Garcia left a fiery trail of birdies to mark his path, six of them in all and four in a row to finish the front side in what would have been a five-under 31.

“Everything went pretty well,” Garcia said. “It’s always great to play that kind of golf. So you never know what’s going to happen [against Duval], but of course I’ll be more confident than I was the first day.”

Garcia was fortunate to get past Loren Roberts in 20 holes Wednesday, especially after Garcia had pulled a three-wood on the second extra hole and hit a portable restroom left of the green.

But he advanced and that’s all that matters, since no style points are at stake here.

If there were, then Thomas Bjorn would definitely get some. Bjorn was a busy golfer Thursday. He had to finish his rain-delayed first-round match, then went 23 holes before finally getting past Montgomerie, 1-up.

Next for Bjorn is Darren Clarke, who dusted O’Meara, 5 and 4.

Woods meets Shigeki Maruyama, who eliminated Leonard, 1-up. If Woods prevails, he will play the winner of the Calcavecchia-Paul Lawrie match in Saturday morning’s quarterfinal round.

Even if Woods isn’t all that sure about how well he is playing, he clearly has the lingo down pat.

He didn’t hit a good drive, he “piped it.” He didn’t get that nine-iron close to the pin, he “stuffed it.” He didn’t hit that pitching wedge merely great, he “flushed it.”

That doesn’t mean there is nothing troubling Woods, though, because there is. He is worried about the way he pulled a few of his drives. He said he knows why, though, which is a start.

“I was overturning my shoulders a little bit,” he said. “I have a tendency of being too flexible and turning too much. When I try not to turn, for me it seems like no shoulder turn, I should hit the ball further because my timing is better.”

Sounds right. Let’s see how good his sense of timing is against Maruyama.