SANDWICH, England -- On yet another glorious, windswept afternoon on the southeast coast of England, the game of golf displayed its grandest and silliest characteristics.

	Tiger Woods has had plenty of high-fives on the front nine this week, but hardly any on the back.

The British Open at Royal St. George's convened a meeting of the best players in the world at the top of the leaderboard for the final round on Sunday. The leader, Thomas Bjorn of Denmark, a two-time Ryder Cup player, is at 1-under-par 212. You may not recognize him, but get a load of the guys chasing him:

Davis Love III is one stroke back.

Tiger Woods, Kenny Perry, Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia are two strokes back.

	Tale of two sides
	Tiger Woods has had trouble on the back nine the last two rounds. Here's a breakdown of his numbers on his last 36 holes.
		Front 9	Back 9
	Score to par	-7	+6
	Birdies	4	1
	Eagles	2	0
	Bogeys/Worse	1/0	5/1

You want a dark horse? Take tour rookie Ben Curtis, who this week is fulfilling the great things expected of him after a stellar amateur and collegiate career.

If anyone ever needed an excuse to miss church Sunday morning, this final round is it. If the third round is any indication, the final 18 holes will feature as many ups and downs as the fairways at this historic course. No one had a wilder ride than Woods, who staged one of his patented rallies on the front nine, seized a two-stroke lead -- and gave it right back.

Woods made eagle on both par-5s on the front nine, Nos. 4 and 7, getting the latter when he holed out from a bunker. That shot put Woods at 1-under, just his second time in red numbers in this Open. More important, it vaulted him over Love and into the lead.

When he holed a 30-footer for birdie at No. 9, Woods raised his putter overhead with his left hand to the wild applause of the gallery, which didn't stop clapping for him until he walked off the green.

Woods was 2-under, two strokes clear of the field, and, given his track record, you half-expected the TV cameras to cut to the famed Sunday shot of the silversmith engraving the name of the winner on the Claret Jug.

But then Woods made the turn.

"The front nine is probably your scoring nine," Woods said. "You look at everybody's card the same way. It's very difficult to make birdies on that back nine."

Woods bogeyed four holes coming in, and had but one birdie. Just as he did Friday, when he got to second and slipped to 13th, Woods jumped into the lead, then slid back.

For the tournament, Woods is 5-under on the front -- and that includes his triple bogey on No. 1 on Thursday -- and 6-over on the back.

While the field agrees with him about the back nine, the scorecards of the other top contenders tell a different story.

Bjorn parred every hole on the back, staying in front of the pack as it jostled for position behind him. The Dane hit 10 fairways and 15 greens, the Royal St. George's equivalent of a $1,000 scratch-off ticket. "I probably haven't played golf tee-to-green as well as I did today for two years," Bjorn said.

Love, who had fallen to 2-over, jumped back into second with an eagle at No. 14, then parred the last five holes, including a difficult up-and-down from behind the green at the final hole.

Singh birdied three of the last four holes. Perry, as steady and unruffled as ever, played the back nine in even par. Garcia electrified the crowd by holing out a 40-yard pitch at No. 17 -- for par. When the ball rolled into the cup, Garcia, of whom little has been seen since he began retooling his swing last year, threw punches and shook his fists in celebration as the crowd cheered.

Even Curtis, who qualified for the Open by finishing tied for 13th at the Western Open, his first top-20, birdied two of the final four holes and shot a back-nine 32.

Woods had better figure out a way to make his peace with the back nine. The numbers in his career are stark. He has won 29 of 31 events that he led after three rounds. He has never come from behind to win a major championship. Asked about that Saturday, Woods mixed politeness with annoyance: "I've won eight (majors) a different way," he said. "Maybe I can win one this way."

Bjorn has won seven times on the European tour, including a showdown with Woods at the Dubai Desert Classic in 2001. The key Sunday, according to Bjorn, will be patience. "Tiger is the best at it," Bjorn said. "When you play a practice round, that's all he talks about with major championships: patience, patience, patience."

Love showed a lot of patience Saturday, overcoming a three-putt bogey on the first hole that seemed to knock him off his game. "We were saying in the locker room at the beginning of the week, this is going to be like last year (Ernie Els won a four-man playoff). There's going to be four or five guys that can win the golf tournament with just a few holes to go. It's going to be very tight."

The final round of Open is setting up like last year's or just as it did 10 years ago on this course. The top five players in the world -- Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Nick Price, Greg Norman and Fred Couples -- all began in contention, only to have Norman run away from the field with a 64.

There don't appear to be any 64s at Royal St. George's this year. The lowest round in the championship has been the 67s shot Saturday by Faldo, Pierre Fulke and Mark Roe.

Only the first two will count, however. Roe, a journeyman on the European tour, finished in the group at 1-over, only to be disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard that really wasn't incorrect. Roe's fate managed to simultaneously cast a shadow over a day of remarkable golf and shine a light on the archaic nature of a section of The Rules of Golf.

Roe and his playing partner, Jesper Parnevik, forgot to exchange scorecards, so each used his own card to keep score for the other. Parnevik used his own card to mark Roe's 67, while Roe did the same with Parnevik's 81.

Both men knew what they shot, as did the scorer who walked with them, the fans in the gallery, and millions of golf viewers around the world. And both men were disqualified for signing incorrect scorecards. The numbers were right, but the names were wrong.

"What could have happened tomorrow?" Roe asked. "I'll wonder the rest of my life what could have happened tomorrow, because I know the way I stood up today."

Roe accepted responsibility, even though Parnevik, the twosome's scorer, and all the officials in the scoring trailer behind the 18th green failed to notice the scorecards, as well. An official assigned to double-check the numbers found the discrepancy. Once the golfers left the trailer, according to the rules, it's too late to fix them.

"It's stupid. It's the dumbest thing ever," Parnevik said. "I don't know why they still have the stupid scorecard rule. Everybody in the world knows what he shot today. It's impossible to make a mistake these days."

Imagine David Stern handing the championship trophy to Dr. Jerry Buss, only to be told that a backup statistician noticed the official scorebook was wrong. Silly, right? Royal & Ancient official David Pepper agreed that, "I think sometimes the punishment might appear too harsh, but one has to sit down and write a set of rules and you have to abide by those rules."

Score it Rules 1, Common Sense 0, the only smudge on one of golf's best days this year. Sunday promises even more.

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.