80 IS ENOUGH!
Even Tiger has to laugh after he shoots his worst score in U.S. Open
MICKELSON FOUR BACK DUSTIN TIED FOR LEAD RORY CAN’T FIND FORM
UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. – How could anyone once that good be this bad?
Two weeks ago, Tiger Woods shot his highest score ever, a third-round 85 at the Memorial, a tournament he had won five times. Thursday, he lowered his bar at the U.S. Open, which he has won three times, with a career-worst 80, beating the 76 he shot at Oakland Hills way back in 1996 before he turned pro. It was the third time this season Woods shot in the 80s.
If Woods has lost his golf game, at least his sense of humor is in tact.
“The bright side is at least I kicked Rickie’s butt today,” he said.
Indeed, playing partner Rickie Fowler, who was among the pre-tournament favorites, was just one of two players in the field Woods beat. Fowler shot 81, and assistant pro Rich Beberian Jr. shot 83. With Louis Oosthuizen shooting 77, the USGA’s feature group combined to shoot 28-over par.
Woods starts his second round 15 shots behind co-leaders Dustin Johnson and Henrik Stenson, in 152nd place.
The debacle at Chambers Bay, where he hit a few shots that resembled those of the public golfers and elicited groans and laughs from the gallery, will surely send him home early and extend his winless streak in majors to 22. He last won at Torrey Pines in the 2008 U.S. Open.
Woods didn’t sound too confident at his Wednesday press conference during which he spoke of the difficulty of implementing his latest swing changes, sacrificing “short-term suffering” for what he hopes will be “long-term gain.” From his perplexed looks all day, he certainly was suffering.
The only smile during the round came on the 10th hole where he provided a glimpse into his brilliant past by nearly holing out from a tough lie in the greenside bunker. But while he turned down a request for a TV interview from Fox Sports, he met the print media and actually was somewhat cheery.
“Not very happy, that’s for sure,” he said. “It was a tough day. Got off to a bad start. I stuck that 6-iron in the ground on the first hole, and then just couldn’t quite get it turned around today.
“It’s just one of those things, just got to work through it,” he said. “I’m trying as hard as I can to do it, and for some reason I just can’t get the consistency that I’d like to have out there.
Woods’ day began quite nicely. He drilled his opening tee shot down the middle. Then it all went wrong very quickly. He chunked his approach shot into the thick greenside fescue and made bogey. As he consistently drove into the hay, he would bogey three of his first four holes and four of his first six, missing a birdie putt on No. 2.
On the par-5 8th, he lost his grip on the club, which flew into the air behind him. He made the turn in 39, managed to par the 10th and played the next four holes in 7-over par with three bogeys and a triple.
The seven, on the 528-yard 14th, found him hitting three shots from the sand and three-putting the green.
And, after making a three-footer for a birdie on 16, Woods may have suffered his worst indignity on the final hole. He cold-topped his second shot from the fairway and it skittered into Chambers Basement, the bunker put in especially for the U.S. Open.
Woods promised to “keep grinding and keep working” his way out of this.
“I know when I do it right, it’s so easy. It just feels easy to control, easy to do it, easy to hit all my shots,” he said. “I just need to do it more often and build from there.”
Asked what positives he could take, he said, “I fought, I fought hard. And that was my number. I couldn’t grind out any harder than that.”
And that is exactly the problem.