Tiger Woods made four birdies on Friday. (Getty Images)

And bad weather on the horizon.

Don't even think about asking the question.

Tiger Woods is in this 72nd Masters Tournament. Big time.

Actually, every one who made the cut is.

Woods birdied his first hole in Round 2, but he gave the stroke right back when he made a 6 on the par-5 second hole. (Getty Images)

The Masters

Full coverage Woods' card Running Round 2 Notebook Phil rides hot putter Flesch fires best round of the week Snedeker still in it Ames cards another 70 Couples misses weekend Wind a major factor

Yet no one's shadow looms larger than Tiger's. Even if the four-time Masters champ and Grand Slam hopeful's his biggest comeback here after 36 holes is six shots in 2005. Even if we've needed a GPS system to track some of his shots. Even if he hasn't broken 70 here in the third-round since a 65 in 2005.

Even if he's playing the 18th hole from the 10th fairway, three-putting the 11th or bogeying the second. Even if one Phil Mickelson stands between him and the top of the leader board, just three shots off the pace.

Tiger kept using the word patience at the end of the day. Patience with his swing, his mistakes and the road he has to travel if he has a chance for his fifth jacket this year -- and the first leg of a real Grand Slam.

"Obviously I've got to make a few more birdies and eliminate the mistakes, hit the ball a little bit closer than I have,'' Tiger said. "You've just got to stay patient. I mean, this golf course, anything can happen. You can come back pretty quickly here. You've just got to keep being patient and keep hanging in there.''

Patient with the loose swings. Patient with the yardages that won't always be half-clubs like they were today. Patient with the swirling winds that test your nerves. Patient with himself for trying to put more spin on his third shot at the second hole and flipping a bit too much.

Patient with himself. He did, after all, stiff it for birdie at 17 and save par at 18 for his second-round 71.

"It was nice to end up under par for the day and under par for the tournament,'' he said. "Seven back is really, on this golf course, under these conditions we're going to have coming up, you can make that up.''

A front is rolling in from the west and it seems even the ghost of Bobby Jones won't be able to hold back the thunderstorms due to hit Augusta National Saturday morning. But, honestly, what else is new?

Again, we're talking patience.

"You have to play well,'' Tiger said. "I don't care who you are in this tournament, you have to play well under tough conditions here, and that's kind of how it's going to end up being. ''

You have to be ready, he said, for anything.

"Especially if the conditions get blustery and swirly like today,'' Tiger said. "You have to back off shots, get recommitted, and play unusual shots. Today I had 200 plus yards on 13 and I hit 7(iron). And Angel hit 7 iron over the back from farther. So you hit weird clubs out here under these conditions.

Woods hits his tee shot on the par-3 12th. (Getty Images)

". . . It was quite a fight to try and figure out what was going on out there. I mean, it was just swirling all over the place. When it died down around 14, it made things a lot easier coming in.''

Before he headed toward the clubhouse -- and perhaps the range for a just-before-dark 20 minutes or so -- he called Friday just one of those days. One where -- give or take a grimace and a club whip -- that patience paid off for him and caddie Stevie Williams.

"I hit the ball well all day,'' he said. "But you got to time that wind. And I was telling Stevie, for most of the day, about three quarters of the day, it kept being like the half club. Right in between clubs all day. And just the nature of how certain days go. How your numbers work out.''

He knew from the first hole things would be, well, interesting. He had a shot over one tree and to the left of another. And, well, a wait.

"It was funny, we were over the ball and it was a 9 iron,'' he said. "And then it was getting, they were just walking off the green then it was an 8 iron. And then by the time I had to play it was just a little easy wedge.''

He spent the front nine backing off shots and trying to read the wind. A nice little-three-hour nine. Again, he said, it was all about patience.

"People have an illusion that this is some kind of wide-open golf course,'' said Hank Haney, who watches over Tiger's swing. "It's not. You have to drive it a lot straighter here than you think."

Which isn't easy when the wind comes dancing down the fairways and swirls everywhere. Not just at Amen Corner.

If there was a key to Tiger's round, it was perhaps, at the 11th hole where, after three-putting the 10th, he made a clutch par putt.

"You don't want to three-putt back-to-back greens,'' he said. "And certainly that would have put a little damper on it. Especially I'm trying to fight to get back into the tournament, I don't want to go 2 over par.

"And I figured I had two par 5s left I could still get under par, maybe sprinkle one more in there and get right back in the tournament.''

He did.

That he's never come back here from more than six shots after 36? You can't really wonder can you? This is, after all, the man who shot 40 on the first nine he played here as a professional. And we all know what happened that Sunday in 1997.

Tiger has had bigger comebacks, his largest from nine shots in the 1999 Buick Invitational. He's played in tougher conditions. He's played -- and won -- here in tougher conditions.

So don't even go where some will. Don't say never. Don't count him out.

Like Tiger, be patient.

And just maybe, come Sunday, you'll see Tiger and Phil in the final pairing. Or a fifth Green Jacket and the first leg of a Grand Slam.