AUGUSTA, Ga. — If Thursday was a hug from the Augusta National patrons for Tiger Woods , who made his highly anticipated return to golf, Friday was a high-five.
Thursday was emotion and curiosity about his ability to compete in his return from a five-month hiatus as he dealt with the fallout from revelations of his martial infidelity.
Friday, though, was Tiger being Tiger — moving up the leaderboard and leaving few questions that whoever becomes the Masters champion will have to contend with the game’s top-ranked player. He made birdies on three of the four par 5s (Nos. 2, 13 and 15) against one bogey for a second-round 70. He’s 6 under par — two back of co-leaders Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood — and will play in the penultimate group today.
“Yeah, yeah, I do,” he said with a confident grin when asked whether he liked his position.
He’s not the only one.
“He’s a heck of a player,” said Matt Kuchar, who played with Woods in his first competitive two rounds since last November. “It’s pretty amazing. I have no idea what he’s been doing the last 144 days.”
Woods praised his practice regime as ideal preparation. He tackled the Augusta National course’s more difficult conditions with better focus and a second-round game that he described as better than his first-round 68 in every way but the score.
“I felt more comfortable because I was hitting the ball better and I was putting better,” Woods said, “even though I didn’t shoot as low a score. I feel like I have more control of the golf ball today from tee to green and I hit putts right on my line.”
Despite the layoff and the distractions, there appears to be little other than the Georgia pollen that forced Woods to wear wrap-around sunglasses for most of Friday’s round.
Kuchar was hardly surprised by the lack of rust in Woods’ performance, which has been highlighted by hitting 72.2 percent of the greens in regulations, averaging just 1.639 putts per hole and making par on the one hole he played from a bunker.
“I think that after he won the U.S. Open on one leg,” Kuchar said of his 2008 win in a playoff over Rocco Mediate, “we all realized that he could pretty much do anything. And never would we really second guess his ability on the golf course. It’s pretty amazing.”