Tiger Woods' bad day out at Kingston Heath golf course was remarkable in at least two ways -- it produced almost nothing praiseworthy and still left him in a share of the Australian Masters lead.
Right from the start there was a different demeanour from the World No 1. He admitted his warm-up was poor and the body language showed a man as puzzled as anyone else at what the course was doing to him.
Instead of a grin there was a grimace -- at the 13th he bounced his driver so hard into the ground after his shot it bounced over the heads of the crowd and had to be handed back to him.
He fired a lacklustre round of 72, punctuated by two birdies and two bogeys, and was stunned to find himself still in the lead -- albeit sharing with Australians Greg Chalmers and James Nitties.
"I was very fortunate - somehow I found a way of shooting par today because it certainly should have been a lot worse than that," Woods said.
"I have played myself into a tie for the lead and I could have easily played myself right out of the tournament."
Woods failed to take advantage of the par five first -- he was one of only four players in the leading 12 not to birdie the hole.
He made up for it with a winding nine-metre, birdie putt at the par-four second but three-putted the next to drop back to level.
Woods found fairway, rough and sand but showed his brilliance by saving par from awkward positions time over.
By the time he walked off the seventh green Woods' three-shot lead had evaporated and he found himself in a share of the pace with fellow American Jason Dufner and Chalmers.
One hole later and Woods was in a fairway trap and Dufner had snared a 15-metre birdie putt and the outright lead.
It was at the eighth where Woods stopped his round from derailing, sinking a five metre putt to save par.
He was again fortunate not to be in more trouble at the par three 11th when he missed the green and his bump and run chip shot ran through the green and stopped centimetres short of dropping into a bunker.
A brilliant 25 metre putt to within 50cm of the pin at the par five 14th gave Woods only his second birdie.
He could have taken the outright lead at the last but his three-metre birdie putt curled away from the cup.
Nevertheless he remains, as he should, a clear favourite to win the tournament tomorrow.
TAB Sportsbet has him at $1.50, followed by Chalmers and Nitties at $6.50 each.
