Tiger Woods went out early on Friday morning and he was cruising. Playing the back nine first, he birdied the 12th, 12th and 16th. He was three-under for the day, five-under for the tournament when he arrived at the treacherous par three 17th, a hole he birdied on Thursday.
Then Woods experienced a disaster like he’d never found on the Stadium Course.
“I’m just trying to hit the ball into the slope and just walk away with a 20-, 25-footer and move on about my business,” Woods described as he addressed his tee shot. He pulled it. It sailed long left, found the wayter. From the drop area, his third found the water again. “As I said, the second one I hit too flat and too hot. But the first one from the regular tee was a good shot, it just flew a little bit too far,” Woods said after he wound up with a quadruple-bogey seven that changed the course of his round.
“Well, I was pretty ticked, no doubt about that, and I was bound and determined to get it all back and get it back to five, and I thought that would have been a hell of a fight,” Woods said of his mindset after the disaster. “Ended up getting back to three, still was a good fight to get to that point, but as of right now I’m six back, which is definitely doable on this golf course, especially with the weather coming in, and I just need to go out there and put it together this weekend, because right now literally anybody who makes the cut has got a chance to win this tournament.”
Woods went into a little more detail on the expect change in weather conditions:
“The forecast actually has changed a little bit. It’s supposed to come out of the south tomorrow (Saturday) and then get nasty on Sunday coming out of the north. So according to the weather, you never know with those guys, so if it stays the way it is right now with the wind coming out of the south, we don’t have to change much. If it blows, this golf course — right now the golf course is playing really short, even for this time of year. If we played this in May with these conditions, I mean, the golf ball would be going forever. But with the over-seed on the fairways the ball’s not really running. A few guys are catching some mud on the golf ball, and so it’s a bit of a challenge, as I said. Everyone who makes the cut, anyone who makes the cut has a chance to win this golf tournament.”
