NORTON, Mass. — Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods played together in the opening two rounds of the season in Abu Dhabi. They were together again for the opening two rounds at Bethpage Black for the start of the FedEx Cup
NORTON, Mass. — Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods played together in the opening two rounds of the season in Abu Dhabi. They were together again for the opening two rounds at Bethpage Black for the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs. The idea is to get them together with a trophy on the line.
Both took a step in that direction Saturday in the Deutsche Bank Championship.
McIlroy went from one extreme to another on par 5s just 30 minutes apart — a 4-iron into 10 feet for eagle on No. 18, a 5-wood in the water for bogey on No. 2 — but steadied himself for another 6-under 65.
Woods, playing in the afternoon, had three birdies on the opening six holes until he could no longer get a putt to drop. He made birdie putts of 30 feet and 15 feet late in the round to salvage a 68, which left him only two shots behind.
In between was Louis Oosthuizen, the former British Open champion with one of the purest swings in golf. Oosthuizen had four 2s on his card of 65, and goes into the third round just one shot behind and in the final group with McIlroy.
The weekend is half over, as this FedEx Cup playoff event is known for its Labor Day finish. There remains plenty of work to be done, especially with nine players separated by only three shots going into the weekend.
Ryan Moore had a 68, playing the front nine in 1 over, and joined Woods at 10-under 132.
Woods missed out on a chance to be paired with McIlroy on Sunday when he missed the fairway on the par-5 18th, laid up short of the marsh and came up just short of the green and its front hole location. He had to get up-and-down for par.
Even so, this Labor Day weekend could bring another heavyweight bout, the likes of which the Deutsche Bank Championship has seen before in its 10-year history.
The TPC Boston is where Woods and Vijay Singh had a memorable battle on Labor Day in 2004, when Singh won to replace Woods at No. 1 in the world. Two years later, Woods closed with a 63 to rally from a three-shot deficit against Singh. And in the first year of the FedEx Cup in 2007, it was Phil Mickelson who played three rounds with Woods and wound up beating him by two shots.
“I think if you look at the overall list of champions here, they’re all big hitters,” Woods said in an effort to explain why the Deutsche Bank Championship provides such great theater.
McIlroy, who won the PGA Championship by a record eight shots at Kiawah Island three weeks ago, looked comfortable on the smoother greens of TPC Boston and had only one bad spell of back-to-back bogeys on his back nine.
Woods came out firing in the afternoon with back-to-back birdies, only to get slowed quickly with a bogey from the bunker on No. 3 and going bunker-to-bunker on the fourth hole when he scrambled for par. He got back with a shot into 3 feet on the sixth for birdie, but he couldn’t take advantage of several shots in the 12- to 15-foot range.
It looked as though it was getting under his skin, but all he had to do was think back to that opening round of 64.
