Woods falls further behind despite good round

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Tiger Woods isn't playing badly. His problem halfway through the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am is that more than a dozen other golfers are playing better, particularly Charlie Wi, who faced Woods as an amateur.

Woods shifted to shorter Monterey Peninsula CC on Friday in this tournament which uses a three-course rotation. He shot 2-under-par 68 for a two-round total of 136.

That left him tied for 17th, with six shots and numerous big names, including Dustin Johnson, Vijay Singh, Padraig Harrington and Phil Mickelson, between Woods and first place.

"There are too many guys between myself and the lead,'' said Woods, who is trying to win a full-field tournament in the United States for the first time since September 2009.

"Some of them will be coming over here and playing [easier] Monterey. I'm looking forward to seeing those low scores, so I've got to make something happen over there.''

Meaning Pebble Beach, where Wi had a 3-under 69 Friday, including an eagle 2 on the 399-yard, par-4 13th when he holed a gap wedge from 118 yards. On Thursday, Wi, trying to become the first golfer from Cal-Berkeley to win a PGA Tour event, shot 61 at Monterey.

Contrary to Friday's forecast -- which promised only a temperature drop to the low 60s -- rain hit the courses, coming in from the Pacific, catching both spectators and competitors unaware.

"I didn't have an umbrella,'' Wi said.

Woods did, but what he didn't have was touch on his approach shots. "I was hitting the ball in the wrong spots,'' he said.

Wi is 40, Woods 36. They battled in junior golf in Southern California and intercollegiately when Woods was at Stanford.

"He's a fierce competitor,'' Wi said of Woods. "When I was 13 and he was 9, we were playing together.

"There's a golf course in Long Beach [Calif.], El Dorado. The ninth hole is a really long par 3. I don't remember what he did with his tee shot, but he hit [the ball] from 70 yards in, lipped out, looked down and got so mad. I said, 'What's wrong?' He said, 'I was trying to hole that.' That always stuck with me.''

Woods on Friday had four birdies and two bogeys.

"Drove it good again,'' he affirmed. "Just didn't make enough birdies.''