Tiger falls apart on back nine, cards 79 to miss cut badly
By Alan Blondin - ablondin@thesunnews.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The golf course was thought to be the one place of solace for Tiger Woods, the refuge from a fractured family life and the continued disclosure of sordid details of his extramarital trysts, if only for a handful of hours a day.
But the torment followed Woods to the course Friday in the second round of the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club.
Woods played one of his worst rounds to complete one of his worst tournaments in his 15 years as a professional golfer. He shot a 7-over-par 79 Friday to miss the cut by eight shots.
"It does bother me, there's no doubt," Woods said.
Woods was playing in just his second pro event since November - when revelations of his infidelity surfaced - and was coming off a tie for fourth in the Masters.
The weight of issues in his personal life has undoubtedly been carried onto the course.
"Every day I do media I get asked about it," Woods said. "It doesn't go away. Even when I'm at home the paparazzi still follow us. Helicopters still hover around. Does it test you? Of course it does. Is that any excuse? No, because I'm out there and I have the same opportunity as everybody else here in this field to shoot a good number and I didn't do it."
Woods recorded a number of dubious personal marks this week:
Friday's 7-over-par 79 is Woods' worst round as a professional in a non-major, surpassing a pair of 78s he shot in the 1990s.
His 9-over 153 is the worst opening 36 holes of his career, surpassing a 152 at the 2006 U.S. Open.
The 7-over 43 on the back nine matched his worst nine-hole score, which he has shot three other times.
He missed the cut for just the sixth time in 241 PGA Tour starts as a professional, and his last missed cut in a non-major was in 2005.
"He's obviously got things in his mind other than what's going on between the ropes right now," said Stewart Cink, who played with Woods in the first two rounds and has been a teammate on multiple Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams. "... If you're not in a great place mentally then it sometimes shows up out there.
"Nobody's perfect and nobody can escape the troubles that the average guy goes through. Traveling all the time and being away from your family is not easy for anybody, and it's easy to let that get in the way when you're struggling on the golf course, too."
Woods hit just six of 28 fairways in the first two rounds, a new low for him through 36 holes. He hit just two Thursday. But struggles with the driver aren't new for Woods. His celebrated short game also failed him, however.
Woods had back-to-back three-putts on the third and fourth holes to make bogeys, double bogeyed the 14th hole after chipping into the water and doubled the 15th hole after a four-putt that included three misses inside 4 feet. The consecutive doubles on 14 and 15 marked just the second time in his career he made at least consecutive double bogeys.
"He's usually the magician that gets the ball up and down from everywhere," said Cink. "But you have to remember he hasn't played a lot of golf since about November. It's hard to come back and just be the magician instantly when you take that much time off. That's where being sharp really comes into play."
But Woods managed to shoot an even-par 36 on the front nine. He made bogey on the par-5 10th after finding a greenside bunker lip, and that's where his round began to unravel.
"[No.] 10 hurt a lot," Woods said. "Because I missed carrying the bunker by about a foot, it would have been perfect. Instead of walking away with 4 I walked away with 6, and that turned the whole momentum around."
For much of his back nine, the world's No. 1 player was relegated to staying out of the way of Angel Cabrera, who was tied for the lead before a bogey on the 17th dropped him a shot behind leader Billy Mayfair.
"It was frustrating," Woods said. "I didn't have much and at that point in time it was pretty much out of reach. I was just trying to stay out of Angel's way."
Woods, who has always prided himself on never quitting, had all he could do to continue trying on the final three holes, where he made pars.
"It's not like he completely packed it in, but you lose a little bit of intensity out there when you're five or six shots out of the cut with three holes to play," Cink said. "It's kind of natural that you want to go ahead and get the thing over with and move on to the next week."
Woods will attempt to keep his issues from following him onto the course next week at the Players Championship.
"You have to let it go," Woods said. "It's like baseball. You go 0-for-4 two days in a row like I did, and you have a whole new tournament next week. ... Hopefully I can piece it together for next week and be ready to go."