Tiger just makes cut

Tiger Woods, the defending champion and 7-4 favourite to win a fourth US Open championship before it rained heavily on his parade on Thursday, looked like he would avoid missing the cut at Bethpage Black, the public Golf course on which he was the only player to finish under par when he won his second national championship in 2002. Former American amateur champion Ricky Barnes added a second round 65 to his opening 67 for an eight-under-par total, to hold the halfway lead and leaving Woods - who was two over par overall through 17 holes of his second round after a shocking finish in his first round 74 - in his wake. A double-bogey on the 15th hole and two more bogeys on 16 and 18 pushed the world No 1 towards unfamiliar territory, for he has only missed the cut once as a pro in the US Open and that was in 2006 when he shot successive rounds of 76 just six weeks following the death of his father, Earl. He began his second round in an ominous manner on the 10th hole when he pushed his drive towards a fairway bunker but his ball got caught up in the first cut of rough. From there he managed to play a good recovery shot to the back of the green and two-putt for par before he missed a birdie putt on the 11th. A pulled mid-iron into a greenside bunker on the 12th - one of three par-four holes measuring more than 500 yards - necessitated a solid up-anddown to remain at four over before he made his first birdie on the par-five 13th. When he fluffed a pitch shot out of the rough around the 15th green, leaving his ball in the thick stuff, it led to a bogey but back-to-back birdies on the 18th and the first hole lifted him from four over to two over. Woods bogeyed the third but came back with another birdie on the par-five fourth. He managed to win his third US Open title with a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in his left leg - which also had a stress fracture - 12 months ago at Torrey Pines but it might take another miracle for him to win from this position, though at least he still has the chance. Barnes, who does not have a top-10 finish in 12 PGA Tour starts this year, was considered to be the next big thing when he beat Hunter Mahan 2 & 1 to win the United States Amateur Championship in 2002 at Oakland Hills. Of 10 tournaments he entered in 2003, he made no cuts and since then he has made no impact on the PGA Tour or Nationwide Tour. In his four previous appearances at the US Open he missed the cut three times and tied for 59th but here he has played impressively, reaching 16 of 18 greens in regulation in his first round and 15 in his second. His driving accuracy improved from 57.1% to 78.6% and in 36 holes on soft greens which have become increasingly bumpy with all the rain and traffic he has not three-putted once. A single bogey on the 10th hole in his first round testified to his consistency. "I played well last week at Memphis but got a couple of unlucky breaks," said Barnes. "I felt like I played well enough to be in the top 10 and that gave me confidence coming into this tournament." Lucas Glover, whose grandfather played American football as a professional while his father was a professional baseball player, is one of the PGA Tour's longer hitters and he opened with a 69 on Friday, enjoyed a quick lunch and made five birdies through 13 holes of his second round while stretching his streak to 19 holes without a bogey before darkness came and play was suspended. He resumed his round on six under par, picked up another birdie on the 15th hole and finished on seven under, one shot ahead of Mike Weir. Much has been made of the perception that only those players who can drive the ball long distances could prosper on a course measuring 7,426 yards - exceeded in length only by Torrey Pines last year in US Open history - especially after the amount of rain which fell on Thursday and suspended play. Weir, who is not a big hit-ter, proved otherwise with his first round 64, which even included a double bogey, followed by a solid 70. "With all the rain, the course is playing longer but I don't think that means a medi-umlength hitter can't compete," he said. When I won the Masters in 2003 the course played really long and everybody talked about how the long players were going to have a big advantage. But all of us mediumlength hitters feel we can compete here." Perhaps the greatest surprise on a mostly unfamiliar leaderboard was the presence of David Duval. The Open champion at Royal Lytham in 2001 is without a win since and he has not been able to claim a top-10 place since 2002. Competing in his first US Open for three years, hehad to come through a qualifier on Monday, yet he managed to follow his first round 67 with a level-par 70 despite bogeying four of the first six holes in his second round. "I've made no bones about it, I think the two Opens are the two most important tournaments of the year," said 37-year-old Duval. "I'm excited about how I'm playing and I'm looking forward to the final two rounds. "Confidence has been lacking for me for a while," admitted the former world No 1 who has missed the cut in eight of the 15 tournaments he has entered this year on the PGA Tour. "As bad as things got with Golf, I never really thought of quitting the game. I didn't want the bad stuff on the PGA Tour to take away any desire to play the game at home and I didn't want to hate the game in such a way that I didn't want to play with my buddies or with my kids. At one point I was probably another really bad year away from doing that." Now he is just another good round away from a chance to compete for the US Open. Ross Fisher has responded well to the test. The Englishman, beaten by Paul Casey by one shot at the BMW PGA Championship last month at Wentworth, fired a superb 68 in the second round to go two under par overall, six shots behind the leader. "I came here with the firm belief that I can win the tournament and I feel ready to win a major," Fisher declared. "I have won twice on the European Tour and I should have won a number of times more. I played solid Golf today. "I'm staying at a great house this week with a great chef and it has been terrific, very relaxed and chilled out. We have been watching movies and a bit of the Golf and you need to that just to relax and unwind. On Thursday we really needed that environment because I basically got up, had breakfast and then sat on the couch all day. It was a strange thing to do when you are mean to be out there working but that's when having a house comes into it. I probably couldn't have relaxed that much in a hotel so it was a great idea." World No 3 Casey struggled to cope in the demanding conditions, missing the cut after failing to recover from a first round 75. ON TV TODAY US Open 6.30pm Sky Sports 1 39 Years since a European golfer last won the US Open. Nick Faldo and Colin Montgomerie, who have both lost playoffs, came closest to emulating Britain's Tony Jacklin's achievement at Hazeltine in 1970