Taking it easy: Tiger Woods has a rest at the fifth tee after play was suspendedTiger Woods was given special treatment by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club as high winds brought chaos to The Open, it was alleged on Friday night.
Ryder Cup hopeful Martin Kaymer led the chorus of fury at the suspension of play in mid-afternoon with world No 1 Woods having played just two shots.
Kaymer said: 'They should have suspended play an hour before they actually did. It looks like they're trying to protect the better player.'
Woods finished eight shots off the lead at four under par after a 73, while overnight leader Rory McIlroy slumped to oneunder after a round of 80.
Another to fire a volley was former champion Paul Lawrie who said: 'When you're standing over three or four-foot putts and the ball is oscillating then it's unplayable and we had that for a while before they stopped play.' Lawrie fired a worst-ever Open round of 82.
Flattened: Rory Mcllroy takes a breather of his ownFrenchman Thomas Levet blasted the R&A for the way the course was set up, saying: 'I simply cannot understand the pin positions. They knew what the wind speeds were going to be.
'All the pins are on the top of slopes and if you want to have a stoppage in play then that is where you put them.'
Play eventually resumed after a 65-minute delay - the first stoppage in The Open for 12 years - with many who finished after the suspension lining up to have their shot at the beleagured R&A as well.
Player after player couldn't detect any difference in the wind speed.
Furious: Martin KaymerScot Andrew Coltart said: 'It didn't appear to anyone who was hitting a ball round that golf course that the winds had subsided. They just wasted an hour.'
McIlroy agreed: 'I don't understand why we came off the course because when we went back out it was exactly the same.'
McIlroy had begun confidently with three pars before the suspension but fell away dramatically afterwards with an eightover round of 80 that left him 11 shots off the lead.
'Going off might have had something to do with the difference but I don't want to make any excuses,' he said. 'I just didn't play well enough. It all felt a lot different to how I was hitting it on Thursday.'
One of the few happy players was South African Louis Oosthuizen, who played before the winds came, and leads by five shots at the halfway stage after rounds of 65 and 67.
As for Woods, he won't feel like he was favoured after being out on the course for seven hours and finishing his round at 9.45pm.
He finished like the champion he is, driving the 18th green with a perfect tee shot that looked like it might end up as a hole in one. He settled for a birdie three.
It gave him a 73 and he will start Saturday's third round on four under, eight shots behind Oosthuizen but only two behind Lee Westwood and Paul Casey.
source: dailymail
