THE UN-AIR CONDITIONED PRESS TENT AT ROYAL BIRKDALE— Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. That noise you hear is the whole of Britain buzzing from Tiger's effortless 65. I walked the back nine with him (and his playing partner Nick Price) and he was spot-on—splitting fairways, flighting (note new verb) his irons beautifully, raining in putts and missing in the right places, on those few occasions when he did miss. I was most impressed with his decision making, as it looks like Tiger has finally absorbed the lesson that you don't have to be a hero to succeed in the majors. He pulled the driver only four times today and was rewarded for his prudence. Two of his birdies on the par fours began with 5-irons off the tee. Of course, two of the times he let the big dog bark were on Birkdale's two par-5s, and he reached both easily to set up birdies. Tiger is in control of his game, and I think part of the reason is that he seems more relaxed here than I've seen him in ages. A lot of that is due to the way he prepared for this tournament.

Instead of his usual marathon sessions of hitting balls on a lonely driving range, Woods spent last week playing golf in Ireland with Mark O'Meara and Payne Stewart, at Ballybunion, the K Club, and some of the other celebrated links courses. That gave him a feel for the bump-and-run game and also mellowed him out. In his press conference this afternoon he lamented that all the fishing got in the way of his golf. Doubtful the next three rounds will be as smooth as this one was. If Woods keeps his cool when the inevitable adversity comes I like his chances the rest of the way.

Part of the reason Woods throttled back is that the course is playing very fast, thanks to the drying effect of the beautiful weather the past two days. (Presently I'm nursing a sunburn because apparently they haven't yet introduced sunblock on this side of the Atlantic.) I don't expect the furious scoring to continue as the course gets baked, and the word is some weather is moving in Friday evening. If it's as nasty as predicted this course is gonna be mutha on the weekend. One guy who is hoping it stays warm is Tom Lehman, who needs the heat to keep his shoulder loose, which he did in fact injure Tuesday afternoon at a local amusement park. The embarassing truth is that he slipped and fell without any real provocation. The pain is particularly acute on the follow through, and Lehman didn't know if he was going to compete in the tournament until he warmed up at the range this afternoon. In typical gritty, gutty fashion, he decided to give it a go and actually played pretty solid golf. He ought to make the cut, which is more than a lot of healthy guys can say.

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