Woods - takes a drop from a bush.

A wind of change came over St Andrews - and it surprisingly blew Tiger Woods back to the chasing pack in the 134th Open championship.

What many thought would be a two-day stroll to victory from four clear at halfway turned into anything but as the world number one battled with the new-look Old Course.

The duel ended in a narrow victory for Woods, who salvaged a great par at the dangerous 17th and then birdied the driveable last for a 71 and 12-under-par total of 204.

But the fight for the claret jug is far from over. Jose Maria Olazabal - not even in the event 18 days ago - is 10 under and Colin Montgomerie's closing 25-foot birdie putt means he and Retief Goosen will resume only three back in joint third place.

Woods remains favourite for what will be his 10th major, but any thought of emulating his eight-shot, record 19-under-par total at the home of golf in 2000 have been sidelined.

He will happily take victory with any score and however it comes.

Woods shocked the 40,000 crowd and millions watching on television around the globe by twice going in gorse on the front nine - and that after three-putting the second.

The advantage was reduced to one and even when he restored it to three it was not plain-sailing over the closing stretch.

Woods went through the green at both the 14th and 16th. He needed to get up and down for birdie at the former and par at the latter, but he did not manage it either time and at the 16th did well not to drop two strokes after leaving his putt well short.

That six-footer was important, but not as much as the 10-foot saving effort on the Road Hole 17th after he had failed to make it onto the green in regulation yet again.

He could easily have three-putted the last from where his drive finished - closer to the first tee than the flag - but he judged the pace and the line extraordinarily well and had the simplest of tap-ins to finish his day's work.

Montgomerie, from slightly further away, never got his first attempt going really. But the second putt made up for that and brought one of the biggest cheers of the day.

Miss it and his dream of a first major title after more than 50 attempts would have looked over. Now there is still a glimmer of a chance and that should bring the fans back in even greater numbers.

Sergio Garcia and Brad Faxon are four back in joint fifth place at eight under and then come US Open champion Michael Campbell and world number two Vijay Singh are seven under.

For a leaderboard you could not ask for much more.

Collated third-round totals (GB & Ire unless stated, (X) amateur)

204 Tiger Woods (USA) 66 67 71

206 Jose Maria Olazabal (Spa) 68 70 68

207 Retief Goosen (Rsa) 68 73 66, Colin Montgomerie 71 66 70

208 Sergio Garcia (Spa) 70 69 69, Brad Faxon (USA) 72 66 70

209 Michael Campbell (Aus) 69 72 68, Vijay Singh (Fij) 69 69 71

210 Soren Hansen (Den) 72 72 66, Maarten Lafeber (Ned) 73 70 67, Darren Clarke 73 70 67, Kenny Perry (USA) 71 71 68, Sandy Lyle 74 67 69, Sean O'Hair (USA) 73 67 70, Bernhard Langer (Ger) 71 69 70, Tim Clark (Rsa) 71 69 70, John Daly (USA) 71 69 70, Bart Bryant (USA) 69 70 71, Scott Verplank (USA) 68 70 72

211 Adam Scott (Aus) 70 71 70, Trevor Immelman (Rsa) 68 70 73

212 Geoff Ogilvy (Aus) 71 74 67, (x) Lloyd Saltman 73 71 68, Bob Tway (USA) 69 71 72, Stuart Appleby (Aus) 72 68 72, Richard Green (Aus) 72 68 72, Bo Van Pelt (USA) 72 67 73, Fred Couples (USA) 68 71 73

213 Tim Herron (USA) 73 72 68, Nicholas Flanagan (Aus) 73 71 69, Mark Hensby (Aus) 67 77 69, Greg Norman (Aus) 72 71 70, Nick Faldo 74 69 70, Ian Poulter 70 72 71, Nick O'Hern (Aus) 73 69 71, Simon Dyson 70 71 72, Fredrik Jacobson (Swe) 71 70 72, Phil Mickelson (USA) 74 67 72

214 David Smail (Aus) 73 72 69, Scott Drummond 74 71 69, Tadahiro Takayama (Jpn) 72 72 70, Tom Lehman (USA) 75 69 70, Kyoung Ju Choi (Kor) 75 68 71, Steve Webster 71 72 71, Pat Perez (USA) 72 70 72, David Frost (Rsa) 77 65 72, Henrik Stenson (Swe) 74 67 73, (x) Edoardo Molinari (Ita) 70 70 74, Hiroyuki Fujita (Jpn) 72 68 74

215 Tom Watson (USA) 75 70 70, Peter Hanson (Swe) 72 72 71, Chris Dimarco (USA) 75 69 71, Graeme McDowell 69 72 74, Thomas Levet (Fra) 69 71 75, Peter Lonard (Aus) 68 70 77

216 Rod Pampling (Aus) 74 71 71, John Bickerton 75 70 71, S K Ho (Kor) 73 71 72 , Steve Flesch (USA) 74 70 72, Mark Calcavecchia (USA) 70 73 73, Tino Schuster (Ger) 68 74 74, (x) Eric Ramsay 68 74 74, Chris Riley (USA) 68 73 75, Thongchai Jaidee (Tha) 73 68 75, Ernie Els (Rsa) 74 67 75

217 Joe Ogilvie (USA) 74 70 73, Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa) 69 72 76, Simon Khan 69 70 78, Robert Allenby (Aus) 70 68 79

218 Paul McGinley 70 75 73, Paul Lawrie 72 71 75, Luke Donald 68 73 77

219 Justin Leonard (USA) 73 71 75, Robert Rock 73 71 75

220 Scott Gutschewski (USA) 76 69 75

221 Patrik Sjoland (Swe) 74 71 76, (x) Matthew Richardson 75 69 77, Ted Purdy (USA) 72 72 77

223 Duffy Waldorf (USA) 74 68 81

225 Graeme Storm 75 70 80