Tiger heads to final round two strokes back

Tiger Woods has been chasing an elusive 15th major title for five years. Once again, he’s in hot pursuit heading to the final round of the 142nd Open Championship at brown and dusty Muirfield in Gullane, Scotland.

On Saturday, Tiger posted a 1-over-par 72 and is now tied for second with Hunter Mahan at 1-under 212, two shots behind leader Lee Westwood of England. There are only three players under par.

Woods’ last major victory came at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. However, he has finished in the top-six seven times since then, most recently at this year’s Masters, when he tied for fourth. Tiger has won three Claret Jugs, the last coming in 2006 at Royal Liverpool.

All 14 of his major wins have come when holding at least a share of the lead after 54 holes. What does top-ranked Woods have to do Sunday to produce his fifth triumph of the 2013 season?

“Just continue to play well and keep plodding along,” he said. “There’s so many guys in it.”

Seventeen players lurk within six strokes of Westwood. While low rounds have been scarce at Muirfield, which has played firm and fast all week, seemingly anything is possible Sunday. Tournament officials put more water on the course prior to Saturday’s round to keep things from getting silly, and Woods doesn’t know what to expect in the final round.

“You don’t know what the number is going to be until you get out here and see what the conditions are,” Tiger said. “It was not as fiery as what we faced the last two days. They have changed every day.”

The 40-year-old Westwood, still searching for his first major championship, played with the 37-year-old Woods on Saturday in the second-to-last twosome in what often resembled match play. They went back and forth on the leaderboard until Westwood gained separation on the par-5 17th hole. He birdied and Tiger bogeyed to create a two-shot swing.

“It was just a grind,” Woods said. “I was just trying to be patient out there. This golf course played different today. They really slowed it up. A couple greens, it didn’t even look like they mowed them.”

Still, only 12 players broke par, six in the afternoon. Woods said it was a matter of adjusting on the fly, especially on the greens, which were so slick the first two rounds that players were four-putting and leaving the putting surfaces shaking their heads.

That wasn’t the case Saturday. Tiger said he had a hard time getting putts to the hole. As an example, he cited the par-4 18th hole, where he hit a nice approach shot 22 feet short of the pin. Woods birdied the hole on Friday and was hoping to repeat the feat, but just couldn’t make himself hit the ball hard enough over a hump.

“I just didn’t trust what I saw,” he said.

As Tiger has done all week, he played conservatively, content to hit fairways and greens and avoid mental mistakes. For the first time in the tournament, he used a driver on the par-5 fifth hole, ripping it down the fairway. Otherwise, he has stuck with fairway woods and irons, which often get 80 to 100 yards of roll down-wind on the parched fairways.

Woods hit 12 of 14 fairways and 14 greens in regulation but needed 33 putts in the third round.

Followed by an enormous gallery on another sunny, Scottish summer day off the Firth of Forth, Woods parred the first hole, then birdied the par-4 second with a 35-foot putt to take sole possession of first place.

“I finally got one to the hole,” Tiger said.

The lead didn’t last long. After parring the third hole, Woods bogeyed the 198-yard, par-3 fourth, which played as the toughest on the course. His tee shot found the front-right bunker, where he hit a poor explosion shot 16 feet short of the cup and two-putted for a bogey.

Tiger squandered a good birdie chance at the fifth, missing a six-foot putt. At the par-4 sixth, he left a 20-foot birdie putt short. Woods dropped another shot at the 180-yard, par-3 seventh, where his wind-aided drive scooted over the back of the green into tall fescue grass and he was unable to get up-and-down.

“It was a bad shot,” he said. “I hit that 9-iron too far.”

Following a two-putt par at the eighth hole, Tiger birdied the par-5 ninth. He hit his second shot into the front-right bunker, blasted to six feet and made the putt to make the turn in even-par 36.

Woods just missed a 15-foot birdie attempt at the 469-yard, par-4 10th hole, bending over in frustration, then parred the next six holes.

At the par-4 12th, the group was informed they were on the clock for slow play, but quickly closed the gap with the group ahead and were not penalized.

Tiger narrowly missed a 20-foot birdie putt at the 195-yard, par-3 16th, the ball curling behind the hole. Then he stumbled at No. 17.

After finding the fairway with a 3-wood off the tee at the 575-yard hole, which played into the wind, he used the club again but failed to clear a cluster of cross-bunkers about 130 yards short of the green. Woods had no choice but to pop a sand wedge over the steep face, leaving 100 yards to the back-left pin. His fourth shot settled just over the green, about 15 feet from the hole.

Westwood pitched his third shot just inside Tiger’s and got a great read from Tiger, whose putt veered left.

“I hit it on the line I wanted, but I just up-shotted it,” Woods said of his second shot. “I needed to hit a bullet to get over that bunker and just spun it [in the air]. It was 230 to carry and that’s a long way into the wind.”

The mistake proved costly, but Tiger regrouped to par No. 18 with two solid shots.

Woods will play with Masters champion Adam Scott in the second-to-last twosome on Sunday, teeing off at 9 a.m. ET. Westwood and Mahan, the final pairing, will tee off at 9:10 a.m. ET.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge of it,” Tiger said. “I’ve been in this position before in the last five years, I’ve been in that hunt and that mix. I’m in it again. Hopefully I can play well and win the tournament.”