TIGER CAN’T ‘HACK’ ST. ANDREWS,
Tiger really has no shot any more
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Go watch the videos from 2000 and 2005. Marvel at how he overpowered the Old Course and out-strategized everyone else in the field. Notice the confidence, the swagger, the aura of intimidation.
We will not see that from Tiger Woods again.
This was as big a week as there ever was in Woods’ reconstruction. He came in with the belief that he hit it as well as he had in two years at the Greenbrier Classic and that sent bettors here scurrying to the parlors to back him at 25-1.
Maybe they thought he had his feels and his “traj” back, that he had established a new baseline, found his bottom and that his glutes were fully activated. And if they saw him striping it on the range before Thursday’s first round, they were fully convinced this Woods would be that Woods.
But even as the Auld Lady was laying down in the near-perfect scoring conditions of early Thursday morning, Woods tripped all over her. When everyone else was shooting lights out on the front nine, Woods went out in 40, beating only Nick Faldo’s 41. Some five hours later, he was signing for his worst first round in an Open, a 4-over par 76 on the course he once dominated (19-under when he won in ’00, 14-under when he won in ’05). It was his worst round as a pro here. Only his final round 78 as an amateur in 1995 was worse.
As Paul Azinger said on the ESPN broadcast, “It’s hard to watch the greatest player of this generation be a middle-of-the-pack hack.”
Especially here. Woods’ first-round 80 at Chambers Bay was on a trickedup course he had never seen until this year. The Old Course was supposed to be his old friend, his shelter from the storm. Nothing could have discouraged him more.
Yet Woods said what he always says after one of these rounds:
“I fought hard. I made so many mistakes. I made two bogeys with wedges in my hand and I bogeyed a par-5. Not ideal.” Not unusual, either. Woods has broken par in an opening round only once, at the Greenbrier. That was also the only tournament in his last 11 where he didn’t bogey his first hole of the week.
So here he was on the straight-forward opening hole, hitting the proper iron shot down the left side for the better angle into the green — and then taking a wedge and hitting it fat. Woods talks about finding the bottom of his swing. Now he found the bottom of the Swilken Burn to the gasps of the spectators hanging on the balconies. A bogey. Now he came to 2, where he hit an iron off the tee, leaving himself 177 yards to the front. He chunked a 9-iron about 30 yards short.
In other words, his thinking was good, his execution lousy.
And while it wasn’t the first time he had bogeyed the first two holes here, the last time was in the bad-weather second round in 2010. And he brought that
back to a 73.
This time, he bogeyed the par-5 fifth with a three-putt and spun his approach shot to seven back off the green. When he missed a five-footer for par on 10, he was already 11 shots off the lead, then held by Jordan Spieth. He then chunked a chip on the drivable 12th and had to settle for par. His only birdie came on 14, where he hit it to five feet. He closed out the more difficult back nine with pars.
“Just one of those mixed bags,” he said.
There really wasn’t much more to say because it’s the same every week.
So you go back to 2000 and 2005 and watch the way he played the game and wonder why he kept trying to reinvent himself. Azinger nailed it. “Everyone wanted to swing like Tiger except Tiger,” he said.
If you want to see that Tiger, look at how Dustin Johnson overpowers the course and how Spieth makes putts. It was that combination that made Tiger so dominant and makes the decline so stunning.
“I think we’re all shocked as players how good Tiger Woods is and has been, to see him struggling the way he is right now, I think it speaks volumes about what this game is all about,” Graeme McDowell said. “You see a guy like that whose career highlight reel would take days to watch. . . . It’s a tough old game.”
Having blown it in easy conditions, Woods is now hoping for hard.
“I’m so far back and the leaderboard is so bunched that in order for me to get in there by Sunday, I’m going to have to have the conditions tough and then obviously put together some really solid rounds, something like what J.D. (John Daly) did back in ’95,” he said wistfully. “If you shoot some good, solid rounds in tough conditions like that, players can move up the board, and hopefully I’m one of them.”
Just don’t bet on it.