Tiger Woods received off to a roaring begin on Thursday at Pinehurst No. 2, making birdie to start the championship on the par-5 tenth. He briefly held a share of the lead.
Some clutch par putts adopted on the twelfth and thirteenth holes, however then the practice started to veer off the tracks on the difficult par-4 sixteenth.
4 bogies over the following six holes adopted, and all of a sudden, Woods went from 1-under to 3-over on the drop of the dime. He in the end carded a 4-over 74.
The 15-time main winner blamed it on his poor ball placing and placing afterward.
“I didn’t hit my irons notably effectively. Didn’t putt that nice,” Woods assessed.
“Drove it on the string all day. Sadly, I simply didn’t capitalize on it.”
Woods hit 12 of 14 fairways however solely 9 greens in regulation. He misplaced greater than two strokes on strategy and missed loads of irons to the best. However he didn’t attempt to play aggressively and assault flag sticks, which is a necessity for achievement at Pinehurst No. 2.
“I used to be considerably conservative in a few of my endpoints,” Woods stated.
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“Then once more, I didn’t hit the ball very effectively both. It added as much as fairly a little bit of distance away from the flag. It’s not the place I needed to be on lots of the holes. It simply ended up being that distant as a result of I wasn’t as sharp as I wanted to be.”
As a result of Woods left himself loads of actual property between his ball and the opening, he three-putted on just a few events—a straightforward method to drop strokes.
“This golf course is all concerning the greens. The complexes are simply so tough and so extreme that, I believe 1-under par is just in fifth [right now]. There aren’t that many scores which might be low. It’s arduous to get the ball shut,” Woods defined.
“In most golf programs you play, you hit pictures into the place it’s feeding off of slopes into flags, whereas accumulating. Right here every thing is repelling. It’s simply arduous to get the ball on high of the cabinets. When you miss it brief facet, it’s an auto bogey or greater. Being aggressive to a conservative line is I believe how you must play this specific golf course.”
Woods did get cheeky on the dogleg proper par-4 seventh however wound up short-siding himself into the greenside bunker. He then hit his third shot 18 ft previous the opening, as one other bogey stared him proper within the face. However he drained the comebacker to avoid wasting par. He made just a few of these momentum-saving putts on Thursday and nonetheless shot 74.
However then, he dropped one other shot on the difficult par-4 eighth, his seventeenth gap of the day.
As for the way he feels after the spherical, Woods stated his mobility is enhancing.
“I’m bodily getting higher because the yr has gone on,” Woods stated.
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“I simply haven’t been in a position to play as a lot as a result of I simply don’t need to damage myself, so I received’t be capable of play within the main championships. It’s decide your poison, proper? Play so much with the potential of not taking part in, or not taking part in, and combat being not as sharp.”
He now has 24 hours to organize for his second spherical, which can start at 1:14 p.m. ET on Friday. However as an alternative of heading to the restoration room, Woods stated he want to go to the placing inexperienced to work on some issues. Maybe his son Charlie can lend a serving to hand.
“I’d prefer to hit just a few putts. My velocity was not fairly there,” Woods stated.
“If I clear that up, if I get a few iron pictures not as unfastened as I did, I’m proper there at even par. It could go to date the opposite manner right here, the mistaken manner. It’s simply so arduous to get again. This can be a golf course that doesn’t hand over a complete lot of birdies. It offers up lots of bogeys and better.”
If he can clear up these errors, Woods will play the weekend. But when he fails to determine the tempo of Pinehurst’s famed ‘Turtleback Greens,’ Woods will miss the minimize, simply as he did in his final U.S. Open look at Winged Foot in 2020.
Jack Milko is a golf employees author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By way of. You’ll want to take a look at @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You’ll be able to comply with him on Twitter @jack_milko as effectively.
