Still Masterful

 They played the second round of the Masters in a wind tunnel yesterday, and it was something to see. Clothing rippled. The Cathedral of Pines waved to and fro. Water features practically grew whitecaps, and there were reported sightings of Dorothy and Toto aloft in some of the drunker precincts. 

The predictable result of all this was that some of the world's best golfers sprayed Titleists around like your average Weekend Walter. 

Bryson DeChambeau, who opened Thursday with a 65 , staggered home with a one-over 73 on Friday. Scottie Scheffler's first-roud 66 became a second-round 72. Of the top 14 players on the leaderboard, only five made it through their rounds under par. And the lowest score among those five was Ludvig Aberg's 69.

"Enough about Ludvig Aberg," you're saying now. "What did Tiger do? I bet Dorothy and Toto strapped an 85 on him, right?"

Um, no.

Tiger shot 72, even par. This despite the fact he played 23 holes yesterday, because he was still five holes light of the required 18 when play was suspended in the first round. At 1-over for the tournament, he made the Masters cut for a record 24th straight time -- and by five strokes.

I don't know if, after all this time, you can classify anything the greatest golfer of his generation does as remarkable. But this was remarkable.

He is, after all, damn near 50 years old now, and his body is probably 75 or so. For 23 holes Friday, he was out there swinging the club and stumping around Augusta National on the ruined leg he gave himself in a foolish episode of reckless driving a few years back.  And Augusta is not exactly the Bonneville salt flats; it's much more hilly than it looks on TV, with a lot of up-hill-and-down-dale hiking between shots.

And yet, wind and all, he followed a 73 with a 72. He's still Tiger Woods, if only sporadically these days. And he's only eight strokes back at the tournament's turn.

"Surely you're not saying ..." you're saying now.

No. No, he's not going to win the thing, barring divine intervention. The Blob makes it 50-50 he even finishes, given the leg and the Augusta hillocks and what would be 59 holes of golf in 72 hours. 

But with the weekend still ahead of him, he's already astonished us. He's already done  Tiger Woods things . At 48, with a body that's a walking surgical procedure, he made the Masters cut while younger, fitter men did not.

He made the cut, and Jordan Spieth did not.

He made the cut, and Dustin Johnson did not.

He made the cut ... and Bubba Watson did not, Justin Thomas did not, Viktor Hovland did not, Justin Rose and Charl Schwartzel did not.

Give the man a hand. Again.