Tiger Woods shoots 82 with wayward driver and failed short game
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – His body language screaming misery on a cold, dreary morning at TPC Scottsdale, Tiger Woods glared out over an expansive water hazard as another one of his bizarre shots from around the green came to rest behind him as light rain fell upon him.
He was one-third of the way into his second round Friday at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, and the upbeat mood Woods was in earlier this week as he prepped for his 2015 debut had soured.
En route to shooting the worst score of his 1,267 rounds as a professional – an 82, or 11 strokes above par – the former world No. 1 was wayward with the driver and looking completely lost with his short game.
Forty-four of those 82 strokes came on his front 9, matching the highest 9-hole score of his career.
Coupled with his opening 73, Woods missed back-to-back cuts in official PGA Tour events for the first time in his pro career of 303 starts. And it's just the second time he's missed the cut in his first tournament of the year since he turned pro in 1996.
Shocking stuff.
On the aforementioned hole where he was staring into the abyss, Woods drove his ball into the water at the par-5 15th before missing the green with his approach.
And then, wanting to hit his bunker shot 20 feet, he blasted it 60 feet off the other side of the green. Then he chunked his chip shot. Walked off with a snowman. He later bladed a chip shot that was supposed to go 10 feet. Instead, it went 25 yards.
As startling as the score he signed for was, his handiwork around the greens is presently alarming. Woods fumed and fans gasped as he repeatedly chunked, bladed or stubbed a chip or bunker shot.
Watching the winner of 79 PGA Tour titles and 14 majors hit shots from around the greens these days is as inconceivable as Secretariat losing by 50 lengths, Michael Jordan tossing up bricks for 30 consecutive games and Rafael Nadal losing 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.
But it's happening.
"It was painful to watch," playing partner Jordan Spieth said. "Because you know his short game once was as good as anybody's was ever going to be."
Woods took to the podium for his post-round presser far from wanting to pull out what's left of the hair on his head, channeling Marshawn Lynch by saying he was only there so he wouldn't get fined.
But he acknowledged he was lost at times on the golf course as he's caught between patterns of his old swing with coach Sean Foley and his new swing with consultant Chris Como.
He also admitted his present state with his short game is getting into his head.
In golfspeak, his swing is much shallower as his surgically repaired back allows him to get higher with his hands at the top of his backswing, which leads to a freer, more powerful and wider arc to attack from. His old swing prompted a steeper angle into the ball.
"So that in turn affects the chipping," he said. "I'm not bottoming out in the same spot. It's a different spot. … To an extent, yes, it is mental, but I need to physically get the club in a better spot."
And that will take work – beginning tomorrow. Missing the cut means missing the Super Bowl, as Woods said he was flying home immediately. He'll practice every day before his next start in next week's Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego, where he's won eight times as a pro, including his last major in the 2008 U.S. Open.
And he knows he needs reps in tournament play. Despite being 39, despite millions in the bank, despite the four surgeries on his left knee and all the other injuries that have piled up, Woods isn't about to stop grinding until he gets it right.
"Hitting golf balls and playing golf at home is one thing," he said. "Playing tournament golf is entirely another. I have to continue with the process. I have been here before. It wasn't that long ago that I changed my swing with Sean, and I was Player of the Year only a year ago. You've gotta keep things in perspective, and sometimes it's difficult to do that."
Especially when you see him chip.
