St Louis: Tiger Woods ran off three birdies in four holes before thunderstorms halted his fightback and suspended the second round of the 100th PGA Championship with Gary Woodland clinging to a one-stroke lead.
A Bellerive Country Club course was soaked by showers, leaving a tantalyzing prospect for 14-time major champion Woods.
“I felt I was headed in the right direction,” Woods said. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day for a lot of us. The good thing is we’re going to have the greens prepared before we go back out there.”
Woodland fired a four-under par 66 to lead on 10-under 130, one stroke ahead of British Open runner-up Kevin Kisner with two-time US Open champion Brooks Koepka third on 132. Top-ranked Dustin Johnson, South African Charl Schwartzel and Belgium’s Thomas Pieters were on 133.
“I feel safe where my game is,” Woodland said. “I’m not too worried with what anyone else is doing out there.”
Schwartzel and Koepka settled for 63s, matching the tournament record with the first same-day 63s in the event’s 100-year history, while Kisner shot 64.
“I’m all right with it,” Kisner said. “I knew I was playing well and had made a few birdies. I like my position going into the weekend.”
Woods, a 14-time major champion in the eighth month of his comeback from spinal fusion surgery, was 3-under after seven holes. Only two rounds still on the course were better and those were from players further off the pace than the 42-year-old former world No. 1.
Woods sank a 14-foot birdie putt on the second hole, a five-footer for birdie at the par-3 third and a 10-foot birdie putt at the fifth. At the par-3 sixth he blasted out to 14 feet and sank the clutch par putt, then parred seven before the storm struck.
Koepka, who started on the back nine, birdied the par-5 eighth and had a 20-foot birdie putt at the ninth for 62 but rolled it three feet past and made the comeback to shoot 63.
“I didn’t know,” Koepka said. “I was just trying to make the thing. I thought I had made it. Sometimes you are in your own mind and don’t know where you are at.”
Koepka defended his US Open crown in June, the first back-to-back US Open winner since Curtis Strange in 1988-89.
Schwartzel, the 2011 Masters winner, didn’t threaten the lead with his 62 bid but sank a seven-foot birdie putt at the par-3 16th to reach 7-under. He found a fairway bunker and parred the par-5 17th then left a 49-foot birdie putt five feet short ahead of a par at 18.
On the prospect of a 62 he said: “I didn’t know there was that. I would have liked to have birdied 17.”
