Tiger Woods lobbies Augusta for faster greens at the Masters

Tiger Woods made the cut at the Masters on Friday, after which he took his campaign for faster greens to another level.

“It’s up to what the committee does overnight,” Woods said after posting a second-round 3-under 69 in his second competitive round since February. “Whether or not they’re going to make the golf course like this where we can go get it or if they’re going to make it hard and firm, where it’s going to be tough to make birdies.”

Long-time observers of the former world No. 1 have become accustomed to Woods’ regular grievances about putting on grass that has a molasses-like impact on his golf balls.

He blasted the R&A for slowing the Muirfield greens in the middle of the 2013 British Open, continued his griping ahead of the PGA Championship, and was similarly baffled by “sticky” surfaces at the 2014 Honda Classic.

Woods has traditionally had trouble adjusting to sluggish turf, so it will be interesting to see what happens Saturday and Sunday at Augusta.

The winner of four green jackets, who played a solid 36 holes and seemed to have put his short-game woes behind him, began lobbying on Thursday for firmer, faster putting surfaces after carding a 73.

“The only thing I really struggled with was the pace of the greens. I just couldn’t believe they were as slow as they were,” he said following a grind-it-out opener. “We were all struggling with it in our group. We were talking about it all day. It was just hard to keep yourself committed to hit the putts that hard, even if they’re downhill.”

After making it to the weekend -- his first since the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August, and his first sub-70 round at the Masters since 2011 -- Woods ramped up his stump speech. He apparently believes that harder greens will help those looking up at 36-hole leader Jordan Spieth, who has 15 birdies to Woods’ seven and a 12-stroke advantage, make up some ground.

“I had a hard time getting the ball close to the hole. We all did in our group,” said Woods, who played the first two days with Jimmy Walker and Jamie Donaldson. “We were talking about that again today. We talked about it all day yesterday. We talked about it all day today.

“It was hard. You expect certain putts to roll out, but they’re not rolling out,” Woods added. “They just don’t have quite the same rollout, and especially some of the downhill putts. We left a couple short coming down the hills, and so you’ve got to make the adjustments. And our group didn’t really do a very good job of it.”

As to what he would do about the situation if he had a vote on the matter, Woods offered a solution.

“They can suck the moisture out of this thing and get them firm,” Woods said. “Or they can live with it like it is, and we can go out there and make a bunch of birdies.”