ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Tiger Woods’ opening round at the 150th Open Championship started Thursday with a perfect tee shot in a fresh divot in the middle of the fairway, which led to a double-bogey on the first hole at the Old Course at St. Andrews.
Unfortunately for the 15-time major champion, it didn’t get much better from there. By the time it ended about six hours later, Woods had carded a 6-over 78. He was 14 shots behind leader Cameron Young.
It was a disappointing beginning for Woods, who is playing in only his third official tournament this season. After finding his opening tee shot in a divot, Woods’ second shot caught a strong gust of wind. His ball ended up in a burn in front of the green. After a drop, Woods made a nice chip shot to about 3 feet, but missed the short putt and made a double-bogey 6.
“Well, probably [the] highest score as I could have shot,” Woods said. “[I] didn’t get off to a great start. … But in a round sometimes it just goes that way. It just goes one way and it never seems to come back, no matter how hard you fight.”
Woods said he compounded his bad luck by never adjusting to the speed of the Old Course’s greens, which he said were slower than its fairways. A three-putt for bogey on No. 4 left him at 4 over after four holes.
“I think I had maybe four or five three-putts [Thursday],” Woods said. “Just wasn’t very good on the greens and every putt I left short. I struggled with hitting the putts hard enough. They looked faster than what they were putting, and I struggled with it.”
Woods, a two-time winner of The Open at St. Andrews in 2000 and 2005, was tied for 146th among 156 players in the field after the first round. According to ESPN Stats & Information research, the only other time Woods was in worse position after the first 18 holes in a major was the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, when he shot 10-over 80 and was tied for 152nd.
“It feels like I didn’t really hit it that bad,” Woods said. “Yes, I did have bad speed on…
Source : espn
