McIlroy leads from Oosthuizen, Woods at TPC Boston

NORTON, Massachusetts: The Deutsche Bank Championship is shaping up as a heavyweight showdown, with Rory McIlroy, Loois Oosthuizen and Tiger Woods at the sharp end of the leaderboard after two rounds.
McIlroy made it look easy at times on Friday on his way to another 6-under 65 to take the 36-hole lead. Woods couldn’t buy a putt and still had a 68, leaving him two shots behind. In between was Oosthuizen, a former British Open champion with one of the purest swings in golf.
McIlroy went from one extreme to another on par 5s only 30 minutes apart, but he steadied himself in the closing holes at TPC Boston to set an early target Saturday. No one could catch him in the afternoon, and the two-time major champion wound up at 12-under 130. He had a one-shot lead over Oosthuizen, who had four 2s on his card, including a chip-in on the short par-4 fourth hole, and had a 65.
Ryan Moore had a 68, despite playing the front nine in 1 over, and joined Woods at 10-under 132.
Woods missed out on a chance to be paired with McIlroy on Sunday when he missed the fairway on the par-5 18th, and had to get up-and-down for par.
The TPC Boston is where Woods and Vijay Singh had a memorable battle on Labor Day in 2004, when Singh won to replace Woods at No. 1 in the world. Two years later, Woods closed with a 63 to rally from a three-shot deficit against Singh. And in the first year of the FedEx Cup in 2007, it was Phil Mickelson who played three rounds with Woods and wound up beating him by two shots.
“If you look at the overall list of champions here, they’re all big hitters,” Woods said in an effort to explain why the Deutsche Bank Championship provides such great theater.
McIlroy, who won the PGA Championship by a record eight shots at Kiawah Island three weeks ago, looked comfortable on the smoother greens of TPC Boston and had only one bad spell of back-to-back bogeys on his back nine to reach the midway point at 12-under 130.
“Everything seemed to work pretty well out there,” McIlroy said. “I felt like I drove the ball a bit better today and hit more fairways, which gave me some more opportunities to make birdies. And I was putting well enough to take a few of those. Pleased with where I am and looking forward to the weekend.”
This FedEx Cup playoff event is known for its Labor Day finish on the Monday.
Woods came out firing in the afternoon with back-to-back birdies, only to get slowed quickly with a bogey from the bunker on No. 3 and going bunker-to-bunker on the fourth hole when he scrambled for par. He got back with a birdie on the sixth, but he couldn’t take advantage of several shots in the 12- to 15-foot range.
“You’ve got to let it balance itself out because I made everything yesterday,” he said. “Today was one of those days where I had some good looks, missed them, but didn’t feel like I was really rolling it correctly. Then I figured something out, and then from then on, I poured it pretty good.”
First-round leader Seung-yul Noh (71), Jason Dufner (66) and Masters champion Charl Schwartzel (65) were among those at 9-under 133.
The biggest moment Saturday belonged to Sean O’Hair, who is No. 74 in the FedEx Cup. Only the top 70 advance to the third stage next week at Crooked Stick, and O’Hair figured he was cooked when he three-putted the 17th to fall two shots over the cut line. But he blistered a 4-iron into 3 feet and made eagle, keeping his hopes alive.

Rickie Fowler made a clutch putt on his final hole, a 4-footer for par that gave him a 72. It looked even more significant at the time because it assured he would make the cut, giving him two more days to make an impression on Davis Love III before he announces his four captain’s picks for the Ryder Cup on Tuesday.
Hunter Mahan had a 72 to end his untimely streak of two missed cuts, boosting his hopes of getting one of the four picks. Dustin Johnson also stayed in the mix, going into the weekend only five shots out of the lead.