Tiger & McIlroy get back in swing
AUGUSTA — Neither Tiger Woods nor Rory McIlroy won the Masters, but both felt they could take something out of it.
Paired together for the final round Sunday, McIlroy blitzed the place with a 66, tying Hideki Matsuyama for low round of the day, to climb up the leaderboard to fourth place, his best Masters finish ever.
Woods struggled, and hurt his wrist in the process, shooting 73. But considering where his game was coming into the week, he wasn’t dissatisfied. He tied for 17th.
“Considering where I was at Torrey (Pines) and Phoenix, to make the complete swing change and rectify all the faults and come here to a major championship and contend, I’m proud of that part of it,” he said. “To make my short game my strength again was pretty sweet. No one knows how hard we had to work to get to this point, but I’m very pleased. This is my first tournament back, being a major championship, and to give myself a chance, it felt good. Just wish I could have made a few more timely putts and moved up that board.”
Woods never got anything going after he missed some short putts early. But if he is going to contend in majors, he’s going to have to straighten out his driver, long his bugaboo. Woods missed his first nine fairways Sunday.
The wrist injury occurred on the ninth hole when he hit a root from the pine straw.
“I was in a hole, if you look at it, there was a big depression there and I didn’t really suspect there would be anything in front of it. Evidently there was,” he said.
Woods grabbed his wrist immediately and was wincing on his next tee shot.
“A bone kind of popped out and the joint kind of went out of place, but I put it back in,” he said.
Meanwhile, McIlroy was playing like the No. 1 player in the world. He was 15-under for his last 45 holes although he never really had a shot at completing the career Grand Slam this week.
“I did a lot of things I wanted to do,” he said. “I played the par 5s well. Just left myself too much to do after 27 holes of this golf tournament. A 40 on the front nine on Friday, that really left me with an uphill battle.”
Woods needed at least a thirdplace finish to qualify for the WGC Match Play Championship.
Asked when he'll be playing again, Woods said, “It’s not going to be for a while.”
Look for him next at the Players Championship in early May.
l MORE FROM AUGUSTA: Masters insider, Page 61.