Tiger Woods gets hot, charges into top 10 at WGC Cadillac Championship

For the second straight week, Tiger Woods made a dramatic Saturday charge up the leaderboard and into the top 10. Tiger caught fire with the putter at Doral in the third round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship and fired the best round round of the week so far, a 6-under 66.

The round came just one day after the new Blue Monster at Doral demoralized the field of the best players in the world, no one even breaking 70 in the third round. It also comes a day after Tiger finished up with his worst score ever at this venue, his opening 76 that he posted Friday morning. It was looking like another middling and mediocre week for Woods, but the wind and conditions yesterday made it tough to gauge just how bad he was playing relative to his prior performances this season.

But things started to turn for Tiger late in the day yesterday, most notably with a ridiculous 92-foot birdie putt, and he carried over that streaky form with the putter in the third round. Woods rolled in eight birdies, four on each side, to jump into the red and just two shots back of current leader Hunter Mahan. On Friday we were poking fun at his scorecard for all the colors it had on the back side -- this one is colorful for all the right reasons:

The eight birdies were one more than his seven combined in the first two rounds, and he now leads the field for the week with 15. The putter was particularly hot coming in on his back nine, and the world No. 1 got a little animated as they started to roll in. Here’s a steady 22-footer on the 12th, a hole he played as a conservative three-shot par-5 to get to this birdie attempt (via PGATour.com):

They were all dead center, as Woods canned birdies from 16 feet, 22 feet, and 35 feet on the back nine. The roll at No. 15 was a bit of a bonus red number, his second bomb on a par-3 in the last two days (via PGATour.com)

He’d hit a perfect sand shot on the 16th for his last birdie of the day, and then save par on the 18th after a shaky approach to get in the house happy at 66.

It was just one week ago, of course, that Woods fired his best round of the season and made a charge from the very bottom of the leaderboard into (at the time) the top 10. That Saturday 65 was still a bit sloppy and a grind throughout, and was promptly followed by Tiger’s Sunday implosion and WD with the back spasm issue. This round was steady from start to finish, Woods smartly and conservatively putting his ball in the right spots on a Doral course that threatens big crooked numbers on almost every hole.

The other difference between this week and last week is that Woods will have a much more manageable margin to take on coming to the first tee on Sunday. At the Honda, the early Saturday morning charge in obscurity may have pushed him way up the leaderboard but he still ended the day seven shots back of Rory McIlroy. The leaders are still out on the course and could increase the two-shot margin slightly, but no one is running away from him at 1-under. Tiger will show up tomorrow with a realistic shot to defend his WGC title at Doral (you know, if that whole back thing doesn’t come up again).