LOS ANGELES — Tiger Woods should be halfway home.
But for some reason, the 47-year-old man ran out of gas at the Riviera Country Club early Friday morning.
Woods made three scarecrows in his last four holes to hit a 3-over 74 in the second round of the Genesis Invitational, which is 1-over this week and makes him sit. straight along the cutting line in its first event in seven months. The game was suspended due to darkness and several players were still on the field. However, it looks like Woods will survive to play the weekend.
It’s unclear if his ankle is limiting – Woods was limping worse than in the first round by the end of the day on Friday – or if he simply doesn’t have the stamina anymore. Either way, Woods is a lot further from his goal of playing the PGA Tour later in his career than he thought.
Tiger Woods is back halfway through the Genesis Invitational
For most of Friday, Woods’ play was like his first round, which he closed out with three reeds in a row to stay in the game. But his Friday round, which for a long time was nothing more than an average round of golf, eventually turned south.
Woods’ descent began on the sixth par-3, where he landed from the tee on the bottom edge of the massive green. Woods tossed his stick back into his bag after seeing it land and rushed to the players-only bathroom located on the side of the tee box before teammates Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas could even tee off. Woods then hit the bunker, which is in the center of the field, which led him to the scarecrow up and down.
Woods then spooked No. 8 and No. 9 – he started from the last nine – after landing in fairway bunkers on both. This led him to 3-overs a day. Max Homa holds the leadership of the club until 10 years. Round 2 play resumes Saturday at 7:10 AM PT, with Round 3 kicking off later in the morning.
“Today, I was hitting badly, I blocked a lot of shots early, and this is probably the highest score I could score today,” Woods said. “Probably should have been easy to shoot five or six times better than now. I just didn’t putt at the beginning and in the middle of the round when I had such opportunities. And those weren’t really hard shots, I was just throwing bad shots and obviously finishing very badly too.”
Woods made some incredible shots on Friday, mostly with his irons. He nearly missed the number 14 and left himself with a birdie putt, but that came after a couple of horrors at 12 and 13. Right after a near hole in one, Woods completely broke his set at 15 and dropped his club in disgust. He still kept par on the hole and then missed a very handy birdie shot in 16th, causing him to mutter “F***” under his breath as he walked away.
He backed it up with a near-head on the next hole, nearly exhausting his 179-yard approach after his par-5 shot landed in a fairway bunker.
The front nine was pretty much the same until it went south. All those missed opportunities earlier in the day turned out to be much more important than he thought.
“I could have easily started very quickly, but I didn’t,” he said. “And then [in the] In the middle of the round I could have turned it around a bit, but I didn’t.”
Other than the finale, there was nothing in Woods’ game to get too upset about. After all, he has barely played since his 2021 car crash, and on Friday he marked just his 11th competitive round as he almost lost his leg. He also only completed one full tournament, although he didn’t look very good by Sunday night at the Augusta National last April. He admittedly got rusty ahead of the week in LA and had many good, if not great, moments.
Woods said he wants to end his playing career by continuing to challenge for titles whenever he chooses to play, which won’t be very often. Even if he snuck into the Riviera for the weekend, winning this week is now almost certainly out of the question.
But if Woods can’t go two full rounds without limping to the finish line, both figuratively and literally, when he does, his goal may not be as achievable as he thought.
Source: sports.yahoo.com
