Darren Clarke won the last two holes of his third round match against Jim Furyk to secure a quarter-final place against Peter Lonard in the Accenture World Matchplay Championship in San Diego yesterday.
Clarke's victory keeps alive the prospect of him repeating his victory in the competition in 2000 when he beat world number one Tiger Woods..
Clarke, however, will have to be at his best this year as Woods breezed into the quarter-finals yesterday. The top seed crushed Australian Stephen Leaney by a record-equalling seven and six - after winning six of the first seven holes and twice holing from off the green for eagles.
Clarke had himself matched that record in demolishing Davis Love in the second round, but the Ulsterman was involved in a far tougher struggle with Furyk. Clarke birdied the ninth to take a one-hole advantage and held that going up the last.
Woods did not even have to putt on the first hole, but when he did at the short second he drained a 25-footer to go two-up, and then made a 14-foot eagle putt on the 575-yard third.
Leaney had hooked his opening drive, then clipped a tree with his second shot and saw the ball dive into the water short of the green. With his fourth shot he was in a bunker and when he failed to hole from there he conceded.
Leaney failed to get up and down from sand at the 204-yard fifth, and Woods rubbed salt into his opponent's wounds on the sixth, chipping in from 28 feet for birdie. A 10-footer for par gave him the eighth, but then came his first bogey of the week - a careless three-putt at the ninth that meant he turned "only" five-up.
It was Leaney's only success. He bogeyed the 10th after a poor drive and then saw Woods have his second eagle when the Masters and US Open champion holed out from a greenside bunker at the 526-yard 11th.
The tournament may be remembered so far for its upsets, but while Woods has been knocked out in the past by Jeff Maggert, Clarke and bottom seed Peter O'Malley, he has now built up a record of 11 wins against those three defeats.
That makes him clear favourite for the first prize of just over a million dollars tomorrow.
Clarke and Furyk both birdied the third, Furyk won the fourth with another, but then the Ulsterman replied in kind on the next.
Woods' next opponent looked like being Ryder Cup team-mate Scott Hoch, who after putting out Padraig Harrington in the second round led Japan's World Cup winner Toshi Izawa by two with eight to play.
German Alex Cejka, the only other European in the last 16, was one up after six on 2001 US PGA champion David Toms, America's top scorer at The Belfry last September.
Woods said: "I've holed four chips in a round before, but in matchplay they are big. It gets a lot of momentum on your side.
"You want to finish as quickly as you can. Anything can happen in matchplay."
He then recalled the Ryder Cup match between Mark Calcavecchia and Colin Montgomerie at Kiawah Island in 1991, when the American led by five at the turn and by four with four to play, but only halved.
Meanwhile, the Ku Klux Klan is seeking a permit to demonstrate its support for the Augusta National Golf Club's all-male membership policy during April's Masters tournament, authorities said yesterday.
Col Gary Powell of the Richmond County Sheriff's Department said he received an e-mail from a branch of the white supremacist group based in Georgia requesting an application for a permit to picket during the prestigious event at Augusta, Georgia.
The group's intent "is to support the right of Augusta National to choose their members regardless of race, religion, sex or creed," Powell said.
Augusta National has come under severe criticism for its policy of not allowing women members.
The issue came to public attention last year when Martha Burk, head of the National Council of Women's Organizations, wrote a letter to the club urging it to admit a woman by this year's Masters.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper quoted JJ Harper, whom it identified as imperial wizard of the American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan based in southern Georgia, as saying the group decided to seek a permit after "hearing on the radio on Wednesday that the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson wanted to come to Augusta" to demonstrate.
Jackson has been a vocal critic of Augusta National's all-male policy. Powell confirmed that Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition group had also sought an application for a permit to protest during the tournament. The club released a statement suggesting it did not welcome the Ku Klux Klan's support.