Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy on the charge at Genesis Open

Here in Tinseltown, they just adore a big-name cast and with the weather-affected Genesis Open at last reaching the third round, the leaderboard is positively box office, featuring Justin Thomas out front and the likes of Rory McIlroy in the wings. 

Yet threatening to upstage them all is that creation of the most imaginative script-writer - Tiger Woods.

When he completed his second round in the chilly morning, Woods believed he had a 25-footer down the hill to make the cut. Yes, he holed it. 

As it turned out, he could actually have two-putted and still scraped in, but the 43-year-old is all about the theatre, isn’t he?  And when he returned to Riviera Country Club to complete seven holes of his third round before the darkness called a halt to this enthralling golfing day, he was very much still in character.

Woods went through the first four holes of his third round in five-under. On the par-five 11th (his second), he conjured his second from 255 yards to eight feet. He holed a 25-footer on the next, a 15-footer on the fourth and the sizeable crowds were in their element. When the hooter sounded, he was on the 17th (his eighth) with a relatively straight-forward up-and-down for par and in the top 15.