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Lee Westwood fired a superb seven-under-par 65 to shoot to the top of the leaderboard during the second round of the Players Championship.The Masters runner-up from Worksop, who carded 67 on Thursday, made six birdies and an eagle on the 16th on his way to 12 under at Sawgrass.
The 37-year-old's round was marred only by a bogey on the par-four last.
Tiger Woods followed his first-round 70 with a 71 which included a double bogey on the 14th to finish on three under.
Woods will be toppled as world number one for the first time in 258 weeks if Phil Mickelson, who is one of the later starters in Florida on Friday, wins and Woods ends lower than fifth.
The 34-year-old Woods, playing only his third event since taking five months off following a sex scandal, found only eight of 14 fairways and admitted his accuracy was slightly off.
"I wasn't quite as sharp today as I was yesterday," said the 14-time major champion.
"I felt like I putted better but unfortunately I was just a little bit too far away from the holes. Most of the putts I had were just outside that birdie range."
A week after missing the cut by eight shots at the Quail Hollow Championship in North Carolina, Woods avoided the embarrassment of a second consecutive early exit for the first time in his career.
"I've just got to keep plodding along," he said. "On this golf course anything can happen. You can make some big numbers here quick."
Westwood was one stroke ahead of Italian Francesco Molinari (65) and Japan's Ryuji Imada (66) with half the field still to finish their second rounds.This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.