Golf: Els Survives Rain As Woods Braves Pain

Ernie Els, unaccustomed as he is to public failure, has rededicated himself to winning, and, in pursuit of that, leads the American Express World Golf Championship at Mount Juliet after the first 36 holes.

Els, winner of three major championships, challenged right to the death in three more this year and won none of them, a fact that has rankled with the normally amiable South African. "That sort of thing," he said afterwards, "can make you feel like a failure very quickly."

There was, though, no thought of failure in his mind yesterday as, on a day that showed exactly why Ireland is so green, he got round in an eight-under par 64, to be on an 11-under par 133.

He leads by two strokes from Todd Hamilton, the Open champion and Miguel Angel Jimenez, with several European Ryder Cup players handily placed for the weekend. Lee Westwood and Thomas Bjorn are both on seven-under, Luke Donald, Padraig Harrington and David Howell six-under and Sergio Garcia not yet out of it on five-under.

The Els 64 was a score he scarcely expected, having not touched a club for two weeks. He rested in his home at Wentworth, took himself off to do some golf-course design work in South Africa and generally sought to find further motivation for the remainder of the season. "I have played a lot of golf this season" he said, "and everybody needs a rest. I needed to get away from playing golf, as such, but now I feel like playing again.

"There is no doubt I was despondent after the majors" he added, "and there was some negativity there. But you have to look at the fact that I came close in all four so I was definitely doing something right."

He was, but it was not quite enough either to win the majors, or forestall Vijay Singh from taking over as the world's No1. In May, Els was favourite to do that, but yesterday he was generous in his praise of the Fijiian, who is also a friend. "I had my chances in July," he said, "but Vijay has been incredible, unbelievable, phenomenal. He's in that zone that Tiger was in four years ago and he has earned that No1 position."

Singh, in fact, now "owns" Tiger both on and off the golf course. Woods is represented by IMG, which on Thursday was sold, for £390m, to a company whose logo Singh wears proudly on his shirt, Forstmann Little and Co. Not that Els has settled for his current third place in the rankings. "I can get to No1 you know," he said yesterday. "I'll start practising again, and who knows what I can do? That's what I'm looking forward to." Els did a few things right yesterday, starting with the fact that he delayed practising until the torrential rain that was falling when he would normally have been on the range, abated a little. Then, as he said, he got off to the perfect start. Having birdied the 1st, he holed from 15 feet for another at the 2nd, almost holed his tee-shot at the short 3rd and holed a 35-footer at the 4th.

"I was off and running," he said, although he did fail to birdie either of the next two long holes, the 5th and 8th and reached the turn in only 31, five-under. Having birdied the long 10th he made what was realistically his only mistake of the round when he took too much club at the short 11th, flew the green and although he hit a deft little chip to four feet, missed the par putt.

Birdies at the 14th, 15th and 17th followed before he parred the 18th, which is not a given. There were only four birdies at that hole yesterday which is not particularly surprising as it is 480 yards long with water all down the left and trees and thick rough on the right. Els could not reach the green, chipped to 10 feet and saved his 64 from there. Woods, limited by a still painful shoulder and neck condition, was one of 20 players to take five or more at the 18th, but he managed a two-under 70, for 138, six-under, a hugely creditable effort in the circumstances.