JOIN USIn unfamiliar territory
Watching Tiger Woods launch wildly errant drives was hard. Watching his ground-ball chip shots was harder. But the hardest part of watching Woods’ career-worst round on Friday at the Phoenix Open was seeing the greatest golfer of his generation turn into the lovable last-place straggler.
Fans at TPC Scottsdale, renowned for their crassness, were overcome with compassion as Woods, who was No 1 in the world at this time last year, struggled to an 11-over-par 82 and a 36-hole total of 13-over 155. It was only the second time in 303 PGA Tour starts as a professional that Woods had failed to break 80 (the other time was in the third round of the 2002 British Open, played in hellacious conditions). For Woods, who has been breaking 80 since age 8, the score was full of foreboding. He might as well have had the Grim Reaper on his bag instead of his trusty caddie, Joe LaCava.
On his ninth hole, after Woods had carded a bogey despite a perfect drive, a male voice cried out from the stands, “Have some confidence, Tiger.”
As his round unraveled, the greeting he received at each tee box grew louder and more prolonged. Fans repeatedly shouted, “Keep your head up, Tiger!” and “Keep fighting, Tiger!” By the final holes, Woods was getting a reception fit for the Olympic bobsledders from Jamaica or the female sprinters from Iraq.
Gone is the golfer whose mere presence on the leaderboard on Sunday seemed to send other contenders into a free fall. In his place is someone who looked frightfully familiar to the 20-handicappers in the stands. As one weekend duffer in Woods’ gallery mournfully noted, “Watching him makes me feel more normal.”
The new normal for Woods, 39, includes bladed chips, unplayable lies, water balls and a snowman in the desert. The last of those, a triple-bogey 8, occurred on Woods’ sixth hole, No 15, and captured his game in all its ingloriousness. His drive landed in the water. After he found the fairway with his next shot, Woods dumped his approach into a bunker, hit over the green, chunked the chip and two-putted.
By the day’s end, Woods was 23 strokes behind the leader, Martin Laird, who shot his second straight 66.
Laird had a two-stroke lead over Daniel Berger, who had never played against Woods in a tour event. Some longtime Woods observers might say he still has not. But never mind. Berger, 21, who was at 8-under 134 after a 69, said: “Obviously he’s the greatest player of all time. It’s pretty cool to be just in the same field as him.”
Justin Thomas, also 21, was one stroke behind Berger. He described Woods as “my favorite golfer my whole life” and said it had been “disheartening” to see Woods shoot a score 14 strokes higher than his own 68. “I’m upset for him,” Thomas said, adding: “It’s definitely, I think, better for golf if he can get back into it. I’m sure he will.”
After his 27th hole, Woods was 19 strokes off the leader’s pace. Talk about disheartening. Asked what he had been thinking when he made the turn in 44, tying his worst nine-hole score as a pro, Woods said: “Just keep fighting. Just keep grinding each and every shot. That’s all I can do. It was not a very good day from the very start until the end, but I fought all day.”
In official tour events, Woods has not bettered par in his last six competitive rounds, dating to August. He missed nearly six months to recover from back surgery and in recent weeks was slowed by influenza.
Golfers are like stage actors. They cannot be sure how well they will deliver their lines until the curtain comes up and they are performing in front of an audience. “Hitting golf balls is one thing, and playing golf at home is another,” Woods said. “Playing tournament golf is entirely another. I have to continue with the process.”
In theater terms, Woods is in previews. For him, opening night is April 9, the first day of the Masters. If he is worried about the state of his game, Woods hid it behind his actor’s mask.
After signing his scorecard, he stepped to the microphone and deadpanned, “I’m just doing this so I won’t get fined.”
Everybody, starting with Woods, laughed at his sendup of the media-averse Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch. Woods’ stab at humour hit closer to the funny bone than the attempt by the marshal at the par-3 seventh hole on Thursday. As Woods’ group approached the tee box, the man announced to the fans, “No jokes about missing teeth, blondes or 5-irons.”
Woods said he was able to joke after a round like Friday’s because on the PGA Tour, bad days come with the picturesque scenery. “We all have days like this,” he said. “Unfortunately, you know, mine was in a public forum, in a public setting.”
Is it worrisome that Woods’ worst day as a pro coincided with one of the best by his heir apparent, Rory McIlroy, who posted a 64 in the second round of the Dubai Desert Classic? Should Woods’ galleries take anything from the fact that Jack Nicklaus, whose 18 career major victories Woods is targeting, won three of them after age 39?
Are Woods’ chipping yips and his recent spate of injuries the beginning of his demise or grist for a gripping comeback tale?
Woods’ next start is scheduled to take place next week at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego, a course where he has nine victories as a pro. He does not come across as someone resigned to mediocrity. Asked what he would do between now and then, Woods, who lives in Florida, said he was going home to practice.
“Each and every day,” he said. “Just work on it.”