Battling back pain, Tiger stays in the hunt

Playing with lower back pain the entire round, Tiger Woods grinded out a 2-under-par 69 Friday to stay in contention in The Barclays at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y., the first of four PGA Tour playoff events for the FedExCup.

“Must have slept funny on it,” said Woods. “Soft beds at the hotel, and woke up this morning with it stiff. As I warmed up, it got progressively worse, then you saw what happened on the golf course.”

Tiger, who did stretching exercises on the putting green before teeing off, was in obvious discomfort throughout the day, bending down gingerly to remove the ball from the cup. He said he never considered withdrawing.

“It was like a section of movement, so it didn’t hurt standing up, it didn’t hurt at the bottom of a squat, but it was somewhere in between there it was going to catch,” he said. “It would just grab before impact, so you’d kind of expect it, so I could get through that. I’ve been through that kind of stuff before, so I know what it feels like.”

Woods said there was no comparison to the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, when he won playing with a broken leg.

“There’s a difference between being in pain and injured,” said Woods. “This is just a little bit of pain. That was an injury.”

After meeting with the media, he headed to the player’s fitness trailer for treatment.

“They’re good at what they do, and I’ll be ready to go tomorrow,” he said.

Tiger, who opened with a 68, has a 36-hole score of 5-under 137 and is tied for seventh, three strokes behind co-leaders Sergio Garcia and Nick Watney. Woods won the 2002 U.S. Open on the Black Course at Bethpage.

“I’m right there,” he said. “This is a very bunched up leaderboard. There are so many guys there.”

A late front-nine starter with Rory McIlroy and Zach Johnson, Woods started poorly with bogeys on the first two holes. He drove into the left rough on the par-4 first hole and missed a seven-foot putt to save par. At the par-4 second, he drove well but missed the green from 127 yards and couldn’t get up-and-down.

Tiger failed to find the putting surface at the 230-yard, par-3 third, but hit a nice second shot about a foot from the hole. He steadied by sinking an 18-foot birdie putt at the par-5 fourth.

Woods made it two-in-a-row by holing a 19-foot putt at the 478-yard, par-4 fifth hole. He drove poorly into the left rough, but hit a great second shot from 158 yards.

Tiger almost went for the hat trick at the 408-yard, par-4 sixth, but couldn’t convert from 14 feet. At the 553-yard, par-5 seventh, he hit a big drive and knocked his second shot on the green with a 7-iron, the ball stopping 23 feet left of the cup. He easily two-putted for his third birdie in four holes.

Woods gave himself two more good birdie opportunities on the par-3 eighth and par-4 ninth holes, missing from 10 and 13 feet, respectively. However, given how he was feeling and the shaky start, he still made the turn in 1-under 35.

Tiger hit driver at the 502-yard, par-4 10th, and let go of the club with his right hand on his follow through, grimacing in pain. After gathering himself in a tent behind the tee, he kept playing and wound up two-putting for a par from 32 feet, his birdie attempt stopping two rolls shy of the hole.

Woods punched an iron down the fairway at the par-4 11th and hit another nice approach 10 feet behind the cup, but missed left. At the 505-yard, par-4 12th, he failed to find the green with his second shot from the first cut of the right rough, then chipped to four feet and salvaged par.

Tiger made another scrambling par at the par-5 13th, where he drove into a deep fairway bunker on the left, punched out, and hit his third shot well short of the green in the right rough. Faced with a tough, downhill lie, he hit a perfectly-judged bump-and-run shot that trickled within a foot of the hole.

At the 154-yard, par-3 14th, Woods hit a crisp 9-iron 17 feet behind the cup and poured in the birdie putt. A poor approach shot from 129 yards at the par-4 15th resulted in a big-breaking, 43-foot, right-to-left downhill putt, Tiger aiming 10 feet to the right. He nearly made it, but happily settled for a two-putt par.

Woods just missed a 26-foot birdie putt at the par-4 16th, the ball stopping on the right edge of the cup. He two-putted the par-3 17th hole from 39 feet, then hit two solid shots at the uphill 411-yard, par-4 18th, his approach settling 16 feet left of the pin. Tiger hit a great putt that caught the left side of the cup and did a 180, but refused to fall.

For the second-straight day, he hit 72 percent of the greens and 64 percent of the fairways in regulation. After using 28 putts on Thursday, he had 29 on Friday.

“I can’t hit it any harder than that,” said Woods. “No, it didn’t feel very good, but I got it around, and just because the swing didn’t feel very good doesn’t mean I can’t bury every putt.”

Tiger tees off Saturday at 1:05 p.m. ET with Gary Christian. Woods has a new sleeping strategy for Friday night.

“I’m probably going to sleep on the floor,” he said. “I do that in Europe all the time, so this is nothing new.”