Woods on Course for 14th Major

Tiger Woods led Rocco Mediate by two at the halfway stage of their US Open 18-hole play-off at Torrey Pines today.

Woods, having saved himself on Sunday with a closing 15ft birdie putt to tie his fellow American on one under par, turned in a level-par 35 as he continued his quest for a 14th major title, only four short of Jack Nicklaus' record.

At 45 years and five months Mediate was looking to take over from Hale Irwin as the oldest winner of the championship, but from leading by one after he almost holed-in-one on the third he was then outscored on three holes in a row.

Although Woods did make a mess of the short eighth and hurt his knee driving off the next tee, he edged closer to the trophy there when his opponent three-putted for a bogey six to be out in 37.

The first two points of interest for everyone - Mediate included, of course - was to see how bad Woods' knee was and whether he could avoid starting with a double bogey for the fourth time during the event.

Instead of a grimace after his opening drive he raised his arms in triumph when the ball kicked out of the rough onto the fairway. Walking with much less of a limp, it took him only two shots to find the green as against five the previous day and with a solid par he instantly went one ahead with Mediate, also in a red shirt, bunkering his approach and missing a seven-footer.

Ranked 158th in the world coming into the week, Mediate saw Woods hit an awful drive at the second, but hit a poor approach himself. They both saved their par fours with good chips and Mediate, wearing his heart on his sleeve as always, went from one down to one up with his two-footer on the next after Woods, plugged in the front bunker, bogeyed.

The shoot-out was taking place on the very day that Woods completed 500 weeks as world No1, while victory would take his on-course earnings through the 100 million dollars (£50million) mark.

The difference between winning and losing today was almost £275,000 - £685,453 against £411,271 - but for two Americans it was all about becoming their national champion. Woods, while not showing any real pain at this stage, was still struggling with his game and he was twice in the rough on the fourth.

A brilliant chip-and-run from almost 50 yards salvaged his four, however, and Mediate strayed into sand off the fifth tee and his attempted recovery flew left and took two bounces on a cart path. It led to a bogey five to leave the pair on level terms again at one over par.

In 23 years as a professional Mediate had won only five of 535 PGA Tour events and in 43 majors he had a mere three top 10 finishes.

Two of them - a fourth and a sixth - were in the US Open, though, and after coming a play-off two weeks ago just to earn a spot at Torrey Pines he was determined to give all he had.

After two sublime holes Woods made a bad error on the short eighth. Going long left him with another plugged lie in sand and his recovery went over the green close to where Mediate was.

Both got up and down, but Mediate's three-putt bogey let Woods off the hook on the long ninth after the two-time champion had played a poor bunker shot and had to work hard for his five.