Golf: Woods hoping to make experience count
Tiger Woods is strong favourite to win the Masters and so create history by being the first player to hold all golf's four Major titles at the same time.
Woods has two strokes to catch up when he starts the third round at Augusta National.
But while he is seven years younger than the man he is chasing, the experience factor is overwhelmingly in his favour.
Chris DiMarco has won only one of more than 170 events he has played on the US Tour in his career, is appearing only in his fifth Major and admits that to lead for two days on his Masters debut is the stuff of dreams.
That does not automatically mean he will subside, but it can only add to Woods's already high confidence level.
DiMarco, having added a 69 to his brilliant opening 65, will set off in the third round on 10-under-par and well aware that the only rookie to win the Masters since 1935 was Fuzzy Zoeller 22 years ago.
"Experience does help," said Woods, tied for second with world number two Phil Mickelson. "It does make you feel more at ease.
"I've been here before and I know how to control my emotions. Every pin (flag position) is potential danger and regardless of what your insides might be telling you you've got to put your ball in a certain spot.
"The wind here comes from everywhere. I've already had an example where it was in my face one minute and straight downwind the next. That's the mystery and confusion of Augusta.
"My expectations are pretty high. I'm right there in the ball-game and in with a great chance."
Right there in the ball-game is indeed a position Woods knows so well already in a pro career that is still less than five years old.
The common thread that runs through all five of the world number one's Major victories so far is that he has never trailed going into the final round.
At the 1997 Masters he led by nine and turned it into a record 12-stroke victory, while at the 1999 US PGA champion he was level with Canadian Mike Weir and beat Sergio Garcia by one.
Then, of course, came the hat-trick last season which has set him up for his tilt at what he wants to call a "Grand Slam", but purists want to describe only as a clean sweep because the four will not have come in the same year.
At the US Open at Pebble Beach last June he was already 10 clear with a round to play and won by a Major championship record 15; at the Open at St Andrews he was six in front and won by eight; and in his US PGA defence he led Bob May by one and after a terrific duel won a play-off.
Woods's rounds of 70 and 66 have exactly matched those with which he began his first Major as a professional four years ago and if the trend continues he will add a 65 on Saturday.
