Tiger Woods, the man who has dominated the last two Open Championships, had a different sort of task on his hands today - repairing the damage of his worst round in the event since 2002.

The world number was due to resume at Carnoustie on one over par and seven behind Sergio Garcia, not having scored higher than his 74 yesterday since his hopes of a Grand Slam were ended by a Saturday 81 in the rain and wind of Muirfield five years ago.

This time Woods is hoping, however, that bad weather could be his saviour as he tries to become the first player since Australian Peter Thomson in 1956 to win a hat-trick of Claret Jugs.

At joint 20th, Woods will tee off well in advance of Garcia, knowing that he might have more favourable conditions if the forecasters have got it right.

"The course is playing difficult and if we get the bad weather you've just got to grind it out and try to stay away from big numbers," he said.

Even so it looks as though Woods will have to do something he has not done in all of the 12 majors he has won. Namely, come from behind on the final day.

And that will be all because of his error-strewn second round.

"I hit a lot of poor shots, but I hung in there," said Woods, who was one ahead of Garcia with a round to play at Hoylake 12 months ago and out-scored him 67-73.

The worst shot yesterday was, of course, his iron off the first tee. It hooked to the left and finished out of bounds in the Barry Burn just as Garcia was finishing his level-par 71.

He said: "It was basically a lack of commitment on the first tee. It was such a poor shot - the commitment wasn't there and I didn't back off."

Being forced to reload on the first tee was not a new experience for him in the Open.

In 2003 at Sandwich his very first shot of the week was lost in thick rough and he was taken back to the tee on a buggy.

Woods triple-bogeyed then - and lost the title by two - whereas he got out of the first this time with a double-bogey six.

He birdied the second with a glorious approach, but dropped further shots on the fifth and eighth.

It could have been far worse for Woods. He was close to the out-of-bounds fence on the long sixth, scrambled a par at the ninth off a really poor approach into sand and then, for the second day running, had incredibly good fortune on the 466-yard 10th.

In his opening 69 it came with a free drop away from a bad lie in the rough because of television cables that strangely could not be moved - even the Royal and Ancient Club's Director of Rules could not answer why today - and on his return he might easily have hit his approach into the Barry Burn.

Instead his ball came down in the trees, narrowly missing two people blissfully unaware that they could have been hit, and with a clear path to the flag he salvaged another par.

Woods then birdied the long 14th, but finished with a bogey after finding sand with his second.