Tiger Woods came into the weekend after struggling through his first round, then catching fire to end his second. He wrestled with driving the ball and sinking his putts on Thursday and Friday, but had his irons and wedges absolutely locked in. Woods finishes with a 67 on Friday and a 68 on Saturday, but knows he could’ve gone much lower if he finished his holes off with quality putts.
“I am definitely not taking advantage of how well I’m hitting it,” Woods said. “These are probably the highest scores I could have shot. I’ve shot what could have easily been 62 or 63 yesterday and could have easily shot 63 or 64 without doing much today. I hit the ball well enough to. Shooting in the low 60’s could have been pretty easy is I had just putted normally.”
An eagle on the 5th hole and birdies on 6, 7, and 9 left Woods 5-under par on his round and 10-under par for the tournament through his front nine. It looked as if he was about to light the course on fire on the back nine, with thousands of people carefully watching and following him in the gallery.
“I played really, really well,” Woods said. “I played beautifully actually.”
Woods would continue to drive the ball well throughout the rest of his round, and was striping his irons to within 15 feet every time he had a chance. It was obvious that he was swinging with a good rhythm and gaining confidence as the round progressed. However, he continued to struggle with his putter for the third straight round. After sinking a few great birdie putts on the front side, he could not buy one on the back.
“I was releasing the putter beautifully early, just getting the putts to turn over,” Woods said. “My toe was moving nicely, and just didn’t do it at the end.”
Woods finally sank a birdie putt on the 15th hole, which sparked a classic Tiger Woods fist pump with a roar from the crowd. You could feel the electricity in the air as the gallery hoped he would capitalize on the momentum. Unfortunately for Tiger, he would surrender all of that gained momentum on the very next hole.
On the par-3 16th hole Tiger put his tee shot to around 15 feet from the pin, and was left with an uphill breaking putt. Woods started his first putt 7 feet right of the hole expecting a massive break, and barely got half of that as his ball rolled past the cup. He was left with a 7-footer for par, which he ended up missing.
Woods would miss a birdie putt on 17, then 3-putt from 20 feet on the 18th to finish his round with a bogey. His second putt on 18 was a tap in from about 2 feet that he was unable to drop. Tiger’s moving day ended with some disappointment, as he knows he could’ve been 15-under had he putted well the last two rounds.
“I’ve got a good feel for what I’m doing. Even when I wasn’t feeling my best on the first day, I was able to make some tweaks to get it around and be able to turn a pretty substantially high number into a round that kept me in the tournament,” Woods said. “I was at 11-under par, and I had wasted a bunch of shots the last two days, and I was 4-over par in the first round. So, you do the math.”