woods grateful for help

By Mark Garrod, PA Sport Golf Correspondent, Chicago

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Rather than trying to discourage fans from getting involved in the action Tiger Woods chose to make light of an incident during his second round at the US PGA championship in Chicago on Friday.

Woods' opening drive was heading deep into the trees when, on its first bounce, a man in the crowd stretched out his arm and brought the ball down.

The world number one still could not reach the green from the rough, but the ball would definitely have been deeper in the trees if it had not been touched and he probably would have had a harder job saving his par.

"Hey, I appreciate it," said Woods when told afterwards what had happened. "It's nice to have Shaq out there knocking them back."

That was a jovial reference to giant basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, but Woods might care to reflect at some point that help from spectators is not something he should make fun of.

The Open champion went on to score a bogey-free 68 to be only one behind joint leaders Luke Donald, Henrik Stenson, Billy Andrade and Tim Herron at halfway.