Aug10 USPGA the story of round 2

There are moments in major championships when ‘who is going to win’ becomes less relevant than ‘how history is going to be broken’. At 6.48 p.m. at Southern Hills there was one such moment. Tiger Woods stood over a 16-foot birdie putt which, if he could make it, would make him the first man in major championship history to shoot a 62. The line was three cups outside the left edge. He hit it perfectly, but somehow the ball defied gravity, horse-shoed round the hole and stayed out.
“I thought it was in,” he said afterwards. Asked what emotion he was feeling when he dropped his club on the ground, he gave a one word answer. “Mad.”
There have been 23 63s in major championships, and 21 guys are on that list, because two of them (Greg Norman and Vijay Singh) have done it twice. The closest guy to shooting a 62 before today was probably Nick Price in the third round of the 1986 Masters. He had a similar putt to Tiger’s and it horse-shoed out. Tiger, needless to say, knew about this, even though he would have been 9 at the time.
For the record, Tiger’s best previous round in a major was a 64, in the third round of the 1997 Open Championship at Royal Troon.
It is now increasingly difficult to see anything other than a Tiger Woods victory over the weekend, and if he doesn’t win his 13th major on Sunday night, it will be a major upset.
Even the stats suggest that the unexpected is unlikely to happen. In the previous six majors held at Southern Hills, the 36-hole leader has gone on to win the championship; and you would have to be an idiot, mad or suffering from heatstroke to predict anything else.
And yet, while one John Daly is lurking anywhere near the leaderboard, you can be sure this is not going to be a boring weekend. Big JD defies logic when he plays this course. David Feherty, at the beginning of the week, said a ‘thin’ person would win here, because of the heat. But, it’s not just that. While Tiger plots his way round, using 5-irons, 4-irons and rescue clubs off the tee, JD does exactly the opposite. To the sound of encouraging roars from his huge following, he plucks his big stick out his bag at every opportunity. At his first hole in the second round (the 10th) he hit it so far right, many thought it had gone into someone’s back garden. He was in the trees all the way round, and yet somehow still ended up with a 73, to be even par for the tournament. 
The heart pulls for Daly, who has lost his Tour card, and is a sensational story. The head says Tiger, and the fact that the world number one has won all seven times when he has held a 36-hole lead in a major, means that the head is probably going to be right. Calling Woods a very warm favourite is to vastly understate the issue.

Leaderboard:

134 (-6) Tiger Woods

136 (-4) Scott Verplank

137 (-3) Stephen Ames, Geoff Ogilcy

138 (-2) Woody Austin

139 (-1) John Senden, Niclas Fasth, Pat Perez

140 (Level) Paul McGinley, Adam Scott, Camillo Villegas, Aaron Oberholser, Ernie Els, John Daly

141 (+1) Graeme Storm, Troy Matteson, Stuart Appleby, Retief Goosen

142 (+2) Paul Casey, Padraig Harrington, Phil Mickelson, Will Mackenzie, Heath Slocum, Sean O’Hair, Stewart Cink, K.J.Choi, Corey Pavin, Kevin Sutherland