World No. 1 Tiger Woods extended his lead at the U.S. PGA Championship on Friday to seven strokes as he pushed harder to win a major title for the fifth year in a row.
The American fired a two-under-par 70 to take a four-stroke advantage over a pack of five players. Vijay Singh, Lucas Glover, Brendan Jones, Ross Fisher and Padraig Harrington were all tied at 3-under par. Woods has won 14 major golf titles, just four from the all-time record held by Jack Nicklaus. On Thursday Woods made the perfect start as he birdied his second and third holes, and then picked up another shot at his second par-five of the day — the 572-yard seventh hole. Woods also birdied the 518-yard par-four 12th hole and the 642-yard 15th. “I was just very comfortable with what I was doing today,” Woods told reporters following the first round. “The golf course is set up very fair. It’s difficult but as Paddy (Harrington) and I were saying, you don’t usually see pins, six, seven, eight feet from the side. It’s normally three and four. So you can make birdies and be a little more aggressive going at these flags. You don’t have to be as conservative.”
