The voices echoed through the dwindling grounds of St. Andrews, the accents were different, but the sentiments were the same as in America: “COME ON HE-GAH!”
As the sun set on a long, slow day in Scotland, Tiger Woods made his way through the last few holes of the Old Course, the frustration evident on his face, in his shoulders, in his slow gait. He finished the day with a 6-over, healthy 78 that left him buried near the bottom of the leaderboard.
It wasn’t to be for Woods, not how he expected his return to St. Andrews to play out. He had spent his rehabilitation from a devastating single-car accident in 2021 planning for this week. Even more than the Masters, more than any other major, he wanted to return to St. Andrews, the course he calls his favorite. He had won twice at St. Andrews and knew the course would be far less stressful on his surgically repaired body than any other on the main rotation.
Yet with all that preparation, all that anticipation, all that anticipation, all it took was a handful of sand to derail Woods’ entire day.
Woods’ first shot of the day opened up a sand-filled hole. When he tried to drive his way out of it, the ball trickled into the burn just across the front of the first green. And just like that, Woods started the day with a double bogey.
It literally never gets better than this.
Woods promptly bogeyed the third and fourth holes and bogeyed the seventh, and just like that he was as close to the bottom of the leaderboard as he had ever been to the top.
He couldn’t catch anything up because every time he made some magic happen – like back-to-back birdies on the turn – he immediately got it back again. He finished the day with three birdies, five bogeys and two double bogeys, as ugly a round as has ever been recorded.
The frustration for Woods must surely be that he possesses some elements of an elite-level game — he’s been around as long as almost anyone else in the field, for example — and his knowledge of the game is second to none. But this knowledge now functions as a curse; he knows exactly what he needs to do, he just isn’t capable of doing it.
The story continues
Woods won’t have much time to think on Thursday, and that’s probably for the best. He started at 9:58 a.m. local time on Friday, less than 13 hours after he finished his round on Thursday. He will have to work hard to do that, and if he fails, he will have to take solace in all the memories of better days at St Andrews.
Tiger Woods struggled at the British Open. (Ross Kinard/Getty Images)
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Contact Jay Busbee at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @jaybusbee.
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