Woods stumbles in Abu Dhabi golf

Unheralded Robert Rock was proving to be the fly in the ointment for Tiger Woods in the final round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship on Sunday.

Aiming to win his first full tournament in over two years, Woods, the fallen giant of the game, started the day in a share of the lead with the world number 117 following a 66 on Saturday - his best score since the Masters second round last April.
He got off to the best of starts by holing a 50-foot putt for birdie at the par five second and picked up another stroke at the next to move ahead at 13 under par.
But Englishman Rock, playing for the first time with Woods, stuck to him with birdies of his own at the second and third.
And when Woods stumbled with back-to-back bogeys at the next two holes, Rock suddenly found himself two strokes clear of the field.
He then birdied the sixth to go three clear against all the odds as Woods settled for a par.
Playing in the grouping directly ahead, US Open champion Rory McIlroy stayed in touch at 11 under with birdies at the second and fifth, before he bogeyed the par-three seventh.

That put him level after the first few holes of the final round with Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Gonnet and Scotland's former British Open champion Paul Lawrie.
It was at Augusta National that Woods sustained the leg injury that sidelined him for most of last year before he finally returned to the winners' circle at the Chevron World Challenge in California in early December.
That, however, was only an 18-man invitation event that Woods himself organised for the benefit of his charitable foundation.
In Abu Dhabi at the fourth tournament of the European Tour season, it was the real deal with the top four players in the world starting their seasons and six out of the current top 10 taking part.
In three, improving rounds of 70, 69 and 66 for 11 under par for the tournament, Woods has so far given the surest signs yet that the swing he has painstakingly remodelled under new coach Sean Foley is finally in place.
A win here will remove a huge burden from his shoulders and lay the first stepping stone of a path he hopes will lead to a 15th major title at The Masters in early April.
"This is a step in the right direction," he said of his own form here over three rounds.
Doubly pleasing for Woods must be the early season dominance he has shown over the world's top players assembled here.
World number one Luke Donald finished well adrift on level par, number two Lee Westwood not much better and number four Martin Kaymer missed the cut altogether.
Only third-ranked McIlroy, who played with Woods over the first three days, has near matched him, going into the final day just two strokes back.
The 22-year-old Ulsterman is seen by many as likely to be the next big dominant figure in the game since his eight-stroke victory in the US Open last June and he has played some superb golf in the Gulf.

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