Masters Update [J. Mark English]

Mark Herrmann of Newsday has an update on the going ons of the Masters down in Augusta, Georgia:

For the record, it is not technically true that nothing can stop Tiger Woods. On Friday a flock of noisy birds did it. Woods, distracted, stopped in mid-swing on the par-5 13th, which is no easy feat, considering how much force and torque are involved. "I felt like I broke my back, my wrist, my neck, my legs," he said after he shot 2-over-par 74 in the second round of the Masters. "I don’t know how those baseball players do it, check-swinging. I tried to check it, and did somehow, and felt like the shaft was going to snap."

Also, let the record read that Augusta National at its toughest and some uneven play by Woods weren’t enough to stop him. He is 3 over for the tournament, only five shots out of the lead, despite having been at 5 over par after sending a ball into the water and making bogey on No. 12.

There were times when it seemed like the only birdies he was going to see were ones squawking over his head. He admitted later that he had "a two-way miss going there. I could hit left or right."

Then again, he added, "I turned basically a 90 into a 74 today, which is nice. Yesterday I threw away a good round and today I salvaged a bad one. I kept myself right there in the ballgame....

....Tim Clark was tied for the lead, almost unnoticed. "I’ve had a third at the PGA, a third at the U.S. Open and a second here," he said. "Probably it will take me winning a major for people to sort of recognize me" ... Fred Couples (8 over) made the cut for the 23rd consecutive year ... Vijay Singh was the best of the 17 former Masters champions, at par ... Craig Stadler, celebrating the 25th anniversary of his Masters win, did fine for a 53-year-old, at 3 over ... Seve Ballesteros, who turns 50 Monday, finished at 22 over, but had some flashes early that got people asking him if he was reminded of the old days. "I used to play better than that," he said.