Golf: ROSE KEEPING UP TITLE PACE ; US MASTERS: PRESSURE MOUNTS IN AUGUSTA CAULDRON Brit Star in Shak

Apr 08, 01:43 AM

Current Headlines: By MARK GARROD in Augusta

Those two closing errors meant that the world number one, bidding for a 13th major and third in a row, was facing the prospect of having to do something he has not to do for his previous 12 victories...come from behind on the final day.

His challenge for a fifth win in the event in 11 years was ignited by birdies at the third, eighth and 13th. The 31-year-old then had his first three-putt of the week at the 15th - for a par after making the green in two - but missed the fairway down the 17th and failed to get up and down from a plugged lie in the greenside bunker.

Asked if he had allowed the round to get away from him again Woods said: "Yeah. And then some.

"You know if you make 18 pars you are going to move up the leaderboard. That's not usually the case."

But the 26-year-old, vastly more experienced now, settled down, then hit his approach to 18 inches on the seventh amd after bogeying the 10th made a 12-footer for a second birdie at the short 12th.

He had a hat-trick of birdies from the second to take over at the top, but strayed into the trees down the seventh for a bogey and did well to scramble a par on the next after doing the same.

Last year's runner-up Clark went over the first green and followed a bogey there with more on the fourth and fifth to drop to two over and eighth place.

He chipped over the green at the third, then thinned his next attempt back to where he was. The 350-yard hole cost him a triple bogey seven and he dropped another on the next.

Padraig Harrington, one over when he teed off again, bogeyed three of the first five, but also had a 22-foot birdie putt on the third to turn in 38 and when he followed a bogey on the 12th with a birdie on the next he was up to joint fifth with Woods and also Bradley Dredge.

Luke Donald, in the group behind Woods and Casey, double-bogeyed the ninth in a 75 that left him six over.

was possible with a 70, while Lee Westwood, so critical of the course after his second round, had a 72.

Appleby came to grief on 17th, hooking horribly into a bunker by the seventh green, catching the lip (and stinging his hand in the process), then putting his third into more sand.

LEADERBOARD

2 over - Stuart Appleby (Aus, after 53 holes), Justin Rose (Eng, 52), Vaughn Taylor (50)

4 over - Bradley Dredge (Wal, 53), Jerry Kelly (50), Zach Johnson (50), Tim Clark (Rsa, 49)

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