Tiger Woods was tested right out of the box Thursday and it simply didn’t go well.
At the brutal 489-yard 10th, Woods cut his tee shot a bit too much, found the second cut of rough and that would begin and up-and-down day for him at the 101st PGA Championship.
Tiger did the sensible thing, laid up to 85 yards then surprising launched his third clear over the green. From 50 feet hit pitch went six-feet by the hole and just like that — he missed and opened with a dreaded double-bogey six.
By the turn he found himself three-over and looking totally shaky. He needed a rally and it looked like he’d get one on the front nine.
He drove it in the fairway at the first, hit a so-so wedge in and holed a 20-footer for birdie. Things were looking up for The Masters champ. At the second, he stuck his approach from 110 yards to three feet and hole that to get back to one-over. Things were really looking up and the New Yawkers were coming alive. “Tyyy-gaahhhh!”
Woods missed a 12-footer at the third after a nifty four-iron shot gave him a good look at a third straight birdie but he then hit two nice shots into the par five fourth and came up with his shot of the day, a 40-footer for eagle that got him into red numbers for the first time. It was his first eagle at a PGA in 18 years. Wow!
But then things fell apart, thanks to a stale putter.
Tiger three-putted at the fifth from 32 feet, three-putted the seventh from 55 feet then took three to get down from the fringe, 44 feet from the hole at the par three eighth.
His short game betrayed him and he’d finish with a two-over par 72 with 31 putts for the round.
“I got off to a not-the-best-start,” Woods said without smiling. “I fought my way back and let it slip away with some missed putts at the end. Consequently, I’m a long way back.”
Woods, who didn’t show up at the golf course on Wednesday, admitted he was feeling under the weather and stayed tucked away to rest on his yacht, Privacy.
Woods knows he will have to do something special to close that nine shot gap when he goes out with Koepka again on Friday.
“We’ll see what the golf course offers up tomorrow,” Woods said. ” It changed quite a bit from when we played this morning to this afternoon. The greens got a lot faster. We’ll see how it dries out over the next few days. I don’t see them cutting the rough down, so it’s just going to place another premium on driving the ball in the fairway to get at some of these flags.
