Tiger’s miracle effort is just short
THEY came from all over Florida to see if the miracle man could continue his stupefying feats and pull off a victory on the PGA Tour that would have been a byword for redemption.
As it turned out, we’ll have to wait at least another week for that to happen, as Tiger Woods fell a fraction short in the Valspar Championship in Tampa.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. It was, after all, just the 14th round of his comeback.
Instead, it was Englishman Paul Casey who indulged in an audacious act of gatecrashing to shoot 65 and set the target on 10 under that earned him his first PGA Tour success for nine years.
American Ryder Cup hero Patrick Reed was on course to match him, until he bogeyed the 18th as the day drew to its compelling conclusion. Woods finished alongside Reed on nine under, a contender to the end after holing an incredible 45ft putt at the 17th.
Nothing illustrates the extraordinary impact this Tiger return is having on the sporting world than the fact the television viewing figures in America for the third round were the highest witnessed for a regular PGA Tour event for 12 years.
No wonder, for the coverage was mindboggling. At the 14th hole on Saturday, Woods smashed a drive down the middle with a recorded swing speed of 129mph — the fastest seen on tour this entire year. How on earth does that happen at the age of 42, after all he’s been through, health-wise? Millions more sports fans must have tuned in yesterday to see if Tiger could pull off something that would have been deemed impossible six months ago: his first victory on the PGA Tour for 1,680 days — and his 80th in total — stretching back to the Bridgestone Invitational in August, 2013. It sums up the horrendous problems he’s had with injuries that this was just his 29th start in all that time.
Woods certainly began well. A bullet three wood off the tee was followed by a fabulous long iron into the heart of the green at the par five first. Two putts later, and he was tied for the lead.
That was as good as it got in scoring terms until the 17th. If getting ready for the Masters is the big picture, there was nothing here to counter the view that he’s right on track. But the iron shots were mostly finishing too far from the hole — and when he did create chances, he didn’t make the putts, until the penultimate hole.
It gave others the chance to pull ahead and Justin Rose and Casey seized the opportunity. How eerie it must have to be in contention and yet playing in front of relatively small galleries. Rose was in the last group yet once Tiger was finished in the pairing ahead, practically the entire spectator corps had moved on.