Thursday, April 29, 2010

Tiger Puts Early End To Ugly Day

After shooting a 2-over par 74 in the first round of the Quail Hollow Championship Thursday, Tiger Woods knew exactly what he needed to do.

Nothing.

Woods signed his card, did the obligatory post-round interviews, made a pass through the locker room and vanished from Quail Hollow to let the frustration over his ragged opening round subside. It was messy enough that Woods figured it was better to clear his mind than grind over a couple of bags of range balls.

"I'm just going to hang it up today and come out tomorrow," Woods said.

He hit four fairways -- just one in his first nine holes -- and only nine greens. He drowned a Nike ball in the water at the par-3 17th hole then put another one in the creek with his drive at No. 18 to finish his first nine holes double-bogey, bogey.

Woods tried to hold it together but the problem was he didn't know where he was hitting it. He had the dreaded two-way miss going meaning he felt like most golfers -- he'd make a big swing then look up to see which way the ball was going, not certain what he'd see.

There was no shortage of security officers around Woods during his first round. There were three uniformed policemen bolting about on their Segway scooters, others walking with the gallery and, no doubt, others blending in like fans.

Woods was treated like he always is, with plenty of applause. He complimented the galleries but admitted he wasn't listening much of the time.

"I was struggling so bad today, I didn't know which way I was going to go, whether I was going to go left or right, I didn't really hear much to be honest with you," Woods said.

Asked if it was something he could fix on the range, Woods shook his head and smiled.

"I'm not going to the range today," he said. "Hell with it."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My God, Ron, what if your hero fails to make the.....; oh, oh, never mind, I can't bring myself to say it. But the tears on your pillow speak louder than any words.

Anonymous said...

Tiger's fully aware of the problem. Tiger's gonna go hang out with Joslyn James. Then, watch him tear up the course tomorrow.