Woods relieved to maintain hope

Tiger Woods was delighted not to play himself out of contention for an unprecedented third Open title at St Andrews on Friday.

Woods added a second round 73 to his opening 67 to finish four under par, eight shots behind clubhouse leader Louis Oosthuizen, with 30 players unable to complete their rounds due to an earlier 65-minute delay.

"I'm eight back and today was a day I could have easily shot myself out of the tournament, especially the start I got off to, but I put it back together again and pieced together a pretty good round," said Woods on Friday night.

"It was a tough day," added the winner of The Open in 2000 and 2005.

"We thought it (the delay) might give us a break, and we might come out there with less wind and have a chance at posting some pretty good numbers but that wasn't the case.

"It was blowing just as hard when we came back out, especially when we got out towards the loop. They were saying it's a hole-by-hole scenario. They could call it (suspend play) at any time, but they didn't, even though it was blowing pretty good.

"You just have to go out there and deal with it, whether you're on the good end of the draw or not the good end, you just have to go out there and play and gut it out."

Asked about his prospects of winning a 15th major title over the weekend, Woods added: "I'm not exactly where I want to be. I'm not 12 under par, but I'm at four under.

"The R&A made a concerted effort not to have the pins as easy as they did yesterday because they thought the weather was going to come in yesterday, but it came in today with the tougher pins. It was certainly one of the tougher days I've ever played.

"(But) we've all played in bad conditions. If you've played professional golf long enough you're going to play in some bad stuff. You've just got to deal with it. Everyone is out there, everyone is dealing with the wind, and everyone is playing the same golf course. Just got to go out there and execute."