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Jack Nicklaus waves to the crowd as he stands on the storied Swilcan Bridge on the final hole of his major championship career.

Not everyone feels that way. The seven players at 6-under 138 included Vijay Singh, who missed several birdie chances inside 10 feet and felt his 69 was about as poor as he could have done. He certainly isn’t about to concede the claret jug to Woods.

“Look at Retief at the U.S. Open,” Singh said, referring to Retief Goosen blowing a three-shot lead in the final round by shooting 81. “You never thought he’d mess that up the way he was playing. I’m not worried about Tiger. I’ll just go out and play my game and shoot as low as possible over the weekend.”

Others at 138 included Brad Faxon, a throwback who came to Scotland for local qualifying and shot 66; and Jose Maria Olazabal, keeping his chances alive with an eagle through the Valley of Sin on the final hole to salvage a 70.

Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson tried to get back into the mix, each with a 67 that got them to 3-under 141. By the end of the day, they still were eight shots behind.

This was only the fourth time Woods has started a major with two rounds in the 60s, and he has won them all. He also is 5-0 in the majors when he leads after 36 holes.

It’s the way Woods has built this lead that is so daunting.

He putted for eagle five times in the second round, converting four of those into birdies. He was tied for the lead when he began his round, and quickly established himself as the guy to beat.

“It was nice to go out there with the lead and not drop any shots,” Woods said.

It was a solid round, but you couldn’t tell by the muted applause from the gallery. It’s a rare occasion in a major when Woods is not the center of attention, with fans hustling along the native grasses and gorse bushes for a view of the world’s No. 1 player.

On this day, their hearts were with Nicklaus.

The only time Woods saw his idol was around the loop — the seventh through the 11th holes at the far end of the course — when Nicklaus was teeing off on the 11th and Woods was coming up the eighth green.

“Other than that, it was really quiet where we were,” Woods said. “I wish I could have heard what was going on.”

He would have heard a salute like no other at St. Andrews, from as many people as the old gray town could contain, all packed into the rectangular shape of the first and 18th fairways.

Singh, Faxon, Tom Lehman, defending champion Todd Hamilton and other players stuck around to watch, joined by dignitaries and everyday fans. Nicklaus could only recall three other times when he felt such emotion — twice at the British Open, once at Baltusrol, where he won the 1980 U.S. Open.

“The only difference was that I was then trying to figure out how to make a par and birdie on the last hole to win a tournament, and I had a few other things happening,” Nicklaus said. “Today, I wasn’t too worried about having to make a birdie on the last hole.”

He made one anyway, just like old times.

Nicklaus blew kisses to the crowd, hugged his son Steve, his caddie this week, then wife Barbara and the rest of his family before heading to the scoring trailer.

A voice came over the loudspeaker at St. Andrews.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we do hope you enjoyed this special moment in Open history,” it said. “There may be some delays. We hope many of you will take this opportunity to watch some more moments in Open golf.”

They didn’t have to look far. Woods was right behind.