AN UPBEAT Tiger Woods shrugged off his bizarre collision with an Augusta security guard after moving to within one shot of the Masters second-round lead.
Woods carded a four-under 68 on Friday to reach the halfway stage of the tournament at six under, a solitary stroke behind co-leaders Louis Oosthuizen, Jason Day, Francesco Molinari, Adam Scott, Brooks Koepka.
Yet he had to contend with an unusual scare at the 14th hole as a security guard – rushing in a bid to control spectators – slipped over and clipped the 14-time major champion’s right ankle.
“I’m fine. It’s all good. Accidents happen and we move on,” said a smiling Woods after his round.
“I’ve had galleries run over me – when you play in front of a lot of people, things happen. But it’s all good.”
Woods made three birdies on the back nine and converted lengthy birdie putts on the 14th and 15th after he was almost knocked off his feet.
However, his fine round could have been even better, with presentable chances going begging on the 12th, 17th and 18th as he again struggled with putts from inside 10 feet.
“I missed a few putts out there, but I’m not too bummed out about it, because I hit them on my lines,” Woods explained. ”I can live with that. I can live with days when I’m hitting putts on my lines and they just don’t go in. That’s the way it goes.
“I also made some distance putts there at nine, 14 and 15. Those were nice to make and if I keep hitting putts on my lines they’ll start dropping. I had great speed today.”
Almost 11 years have passed since Woods last won a major, while his previous Masters triumph came back in 2005, but he did contend strongly at last year’s Open and US PGA Championships.
“This is now three straight majors I’ve been in the mix, so it’s good stuff,” he added.
“I feel like I’ve played my way back into the tournament. It felt very good to be out there doing what I’m doing.”
Gavan Casey and Murray Kinsella are joined by Bernard Jackman to discuss Izzy Folau’s impending sacking by Australia and all the week’s news on the latest episode of The42 Rugby Weekly:
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