Tiger Woods, His Magic Putter And His Wayward Driver

Tiger's Driver Took Him Places He Didn't Want To Go On Saturday, But He Managed To Find His Way Home Often Enough To Shoot A 2-under Par, 70 - Image Courtesy Wikimedia

By Alfie Lau

Left, left, right, right, right, left, left, CENTRE, right.

Right, CENTRE, right, left, CENTRE, right, left, right, right.

Nope, this is not a military drill exercise but this is a description of where Tiger Woods’ tee shots landed on Saturday during the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines South Course.

Woods could only manage 3 of 18 fairways and greens on a day he still managed to shoot (-2) 70 to finish at (-3) for the tournament and T39. That’s because his once magical putter holed almost 100 feet of putts during the course of his round and his wedges got him out of the deep rough many of his drives landed in.

“Gross” was how Woods characterized his round, pointing flat out that without his short game, “it would have been snowing on me, it would have been snowing.”

Yup, 80 was in play if you saw where Tiger’s drives sprayed to on Saturday, but Woods’ trademark fighting spirit wouldn’t let him quit on his round. “I tried as hard as I possibly could out there,” said Woods. “I didn’t have much, but I fought and put up a score and made some putts.”

Easy for Woods to say, because his mere presence meant thousands more fans were at Torrey Pines Saturday, so much so that organizers warned patrons that if they didn’t have parking passes pre-paid already, they weren’t getting anything at all.

But with Woods teeing off on the 10th hole, about a mile from the clubhouse, the first hole crowds were manageable. But as Woods, Sung Kang and Brandt Snedeker completed one hole after another, more patrons joined the throng and it was a full blown party as the trio made its way up the 18th fairway, the midway point of their round.

Woods may have been able to ignore the distractions – after all, he’s played with that his entire career – but Snedeker and Kang could only shoot 74 and 75 respectively, playing themselves out of the tournament.

It was even worse for the trio playing ahead of Woods, for fans were running up their fairway to get a prime spot to see Woods play. Unfortunately for Canadian golf fans, that trio included Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor, who shot 79, while playing partners Julian Suri and Robert Streb shot 75 and 73 respectively.

Taylor hasn’t played a round with Woods, either in tournament play or practice, and it has to be better than playing in the group in front of him during a marquee PGA TOUR event.

It was also a tough day for Ontario’s Ben Silverman, who shot a (+4) round of 76 that took him back to even par for the tournament. Abbotsford’s Adam Hadwin remained consistent, with an even par 72 that leaves him still at (-3). Cut-making machine Corey Conners is in line for a big paycheque with another good round Sunday, as he shot a (-2) round of 70 and sits at (-6) and T17, just five strokes behind third-round leader Alex Noren.

The bad news for Hadwin on Sunday is he gets to play in the group in front of Woods, just like Taylor had to on Saturday. Hadwin, Tom Hoge and Danny Lee are the first group out on the 10th tee at 8:05 a.m., followed by Woods, Hideki Matsuyama and Francesco Molinari.

Oh, there’s an actual golf tournament going on? It would be hard to know that judging by the smaller crowds following the final groups who started the front 9. Jon Rahm, who could go to No. 1 in the World with a win? Not many fans witnessed his 75. Crowd favourite Phil Mickelson couldn’t keep fans interested and it’s a good thing because he shot 76.

Noren, who shot a 69 that featured an eagle, three birdies and a double bogey, is a smooth hitting Swede who nobody in the media centre had much interest in talking to after his round. Perhaps if he wins Sunday, Noren will be a media darling.

But he’ll never be Tiger, who’s added a new term to his lexicon, right beside the infamous ‘activated glutes’ he coined in 2015. The newest Tiger term is ‘feels’ or what he feels when he hits the club like only he can. “My feels are all off, they’re all different now,” said Woods. “My feels are a little bit off and that’s something I’m going to have to get used to. What are my feels for certain shots now and going forward.”

But one thing he isn’t feeling now is pain, which he made sure to point out was the biggest reason for his short game problems of the last two years. “I don’t have burning pain down my leg, my leg’s not shaking, my foot’s working,” said Woods.

“People don’t realize the shots that hurt the most were putts and the chips because I was the most bent over. The shots I love to hit were the drivers. I was the least bent over. You would think that would be the most speed, but that was the least painful of all my shots that I hit. Bunker shots were off-the-charts painful. I just hated hitting little short shots because it just hurt. Give me a driver any day a year ago and I felt so much better.”

Well, that driver was doing military exercises all day Saturday at Torrey Pines and if Woods has any dreams of shooting in the 60s in the final round Sunday, he’s going to need that M3 driver, which a media member cryptically referred to as Snowflake earlier this week, to find more than three fairways.

About The Writer:

Alfie Lau has been a contributor to Inside Golf for several years and is making his annual pilgrimage to Torrey Pines for part of the PGA TOUR's West Coast Swing. He can be reached at www.twitter.com/AlfieLau