By Jim Litke
AP Sports Columnist

SANDWICH, England - Tiger Woods lost his opening drive in the rough in the British Open, and all England shivered. Or at least those citizens who regularly frequent betting parlors.

In the time it took Woods to return to the first tee and hit another drive in Thursday's opening round, punters across the kingdom toppled him as the favorite, lengthening his odds from 7-2 to 9-1 and settling on defending champ and 7-1 second favorite Ernie Els as their latest darling.

So imagine what those same bettors did to Woods as he aimed putt after putt after putt at the 12th hole Friday - three putts from inside 3 feet - and kept missing.

The last time that happened to Woods, he was probably wearing diapers and the hole almost certainly had a clown's mouth at the end.

"Technically, it was a three-putt," Woods said, "but I hit it four times."

Technically, he's right.

Woods' approach shot to the 12th finished just short of the green and then he grazed the lip of the cup with his 30-foot birdie putt. Because he made the stroke from the fringe instead of the green, technically it doesn't count as a putt.

But it hardly matters, because that's when the adventure began.

"I hit a good first putt and ran it by 3 feet. No big deal."

Woods paused.

"Then I pulled the next two."

The final tally was a double-bogey 6. One minute the world's best golfer was a shot out of the lead and about to grab the British Open by the throat. And the next minute, his caddie, Steve Williams, was mentally going through the golf bag to remember whether any sharp objects were stored inside.

Asked about his emotions walking off the green, Woods replied, "Frustrated."

"But then," he added, "you've got to calm down and put the next tee shot where you need to put it."

So naturally, Woods airmailed his tee shot at 13 into the left rough. And then he salvaged another tough par, limped home with a 1-over 72 and promptly put the rest of the field on notice.

"I'm right there in the hunt, only four shots back and if I play a good solid round tomorrow," he said, "I should be right where I want to be."

Technically, he's right.

But even more than that, anybody who's watched one contender after another crash and burn over the unyielding links at Royal St. George's can argue Woods has walked away from two wrecks already and neither has slowed him significantly. The rest of the field would love to rebound from their traumas half that quickly.

Greg Norman, who won the Open here 10 years ago, followed up his opening-round 69 with a 79. Then he joined a growing conga line of golfers threatening a revolt over the devilish pin placements.

"Right on the verge of being ridiculous," the two-time Open champion said.

"What they should do," said Mark Roe, who went the other way and followed up Thursday's 77 with a 70, "is take the guy who set the flag positions and shoot him. He's just a masochist. Every single one was on a hump."

What the growing chorus of complaints tells the rest of us is that the margin for error is shrinking by the minute. The blustery wind is making it nearly impossible to keep tee shots on the baked fairways and from the rough, the greens are proving as approachable as J-Lo on a bad hair day.

"If you hit a shot and it bounces funny, or you can't get close to a pin, and you start thinking about those things, you can go kind of crazy," said Davis Love III, whose 1-under total was the only subpar score on the board heading into the weekend and good enough for a two-stroke lead.

"And the course gets harder, and you need a clearer and clearer head as you go along," he added, "and that is why this tournament is going to be so hard to win."

So who to bet on?

Love conceded Woods "has proved in the last six or eight years that he's the toughest mentally.

"But you've got to do it all," he added quickly. "I think this is going to test the complete package probably more than any tournament we've seen in quite a while."

A few other things worth remembering: Woods has never won a major after failing to break par in the opening round; never won a major coming from behind; and only come back to win after trailing by four strokes after 36 holes.

Even so, by the end of the day, bettors had Love and Woods down at 4 1/2-1 co-favorites.

Maybe they know something after all.

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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org