Woods (66) Moves Up, but He Still Trails by Six

After a dismal first round left him on the wrong side of the cut at the Western Open, Tiger Woods figured he could get right back in it with a 64 or 65.

He was close.

Woods shot a five-under-par 66 Friday at Lemont, Ill., putting him six strokes behind leader Chris Couch and giving him at least a chance to make a move this weekend.

Couch, who earned a spot in the tournament by winning the Nationwide Tour’s LaSalle Bank Open last month, is at nine-under 133 after a 67. Tim Herron (66), Jim Furyk (70) and Duffy Waldorf (65) are one stroke behind.

Ben Curtis, who shared the first-round lead with Furyk and Todd Fischer, shot an even-par 71 and is two strokes off the lead. Fischer (72) is at 136 with Steve Flesch.

“It’s still a long tournament,” Couch said. “I’m trying not to think too far ahead. I’m going to take it shot by shot and keep trying to have some fun.”

Woods didn’t have much fun Thursday. He couldn’t get anywhere close to the cup or take advantage of the par fives, and his two-over 73 left him tied for 103rd and in jeopardy of missing another cut this year.

When he failed to make the weekend at the Byron Nelson Championship in May, it was his first missed cut in seven years on the PGA Tour, a stretch of 142 starts.

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Annika Sorenstam survived a big scare in the second round of the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Gladstone, N.J., holing a 35-foot birdie on the 21st hole to beat 32nd-seeded Tina Barrett.

The top-seeded Sorenstam, coming off a 23rd-place tie last week in the U.S. Open, overcame three two-hole deficits before taking her first lead on the par-three 17th.

She needed only to halve the par-four 18th to win, but she bogeyed the hole -- missing an eight-foot par try -- to send the match back to No. 1.

Barrett, winless since the 1989 Ocean State Open in her first season on the LPGA Tour, made pressure putts to extend the match on the first two extra holes -- an eight-footer for par on the par-four first and an 18-footer for birdie with Sorenstam only inches from the cup in three on the par-five second. On the third, she missed a 12-foot birdie try after Sorenstam holed her long birdie putt.

Sorenstam advanced to face 48th-seeded Rachel Hetherington, a 5-and-4 winner over No. 16 Mi Hyun Kim, this morning in the third round. The quarterfinals are in the afternoon. The semifinals and final are Sunday

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Ron Streck shot a nine-under 62 to take a two-stroke lead over Craig Stadler after the first round of the Champions Tour Commerce Bank Championship at East Meadow, N.Y.

Streck didn’t have a bogey in his lowest round since he shot 62 four times in his 22 years on the PGA Tour. He had five birdie putts of three feet or less.

Dave Eichelberger, Wayne Levi, Darrell Kestner and Gary McCord had 65s as 51 players in the field of 78 broke par. The average score in the opening round was a tournament-record 69.65.

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Michelle Wie’s group for the 36-hole qualifying Monday and Tuesday for the match-play portion of the 80th U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship includes Duke Butler IV of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and Ed McDugle of Memphis, Tenn. Butler is the son of the PGA Tour’s vice president of tournament business affairs, Duke Butler III.

If Wie, 15, wins the tournament, which ends Saturday, she would receive an invitation to play in the 2006 Masters.

The tournament will be played at the 6,966-yard, par 70 Shaker Run Golf Club at Lebanon, Ohio.

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Times staff writer Thomas Bonk contributed to this report.