Tiger misses cut at Waste Management Phoenix Open
After shooting a career-worst 11-over 82 and missing the cut Friday at the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale in Scottsdale, Arizona, Tiger Woods retained his sense of humor.
“I’m just doing this so I don’t get fined,” he said, in reference to Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch.
Woods drew laughs from the media, but there was nothing funny about his two-day showing in the desert, his first PGA TOUR event since the PGA Championship last August. Tiger knew his transition from swing coach Sean Foley to Chris Como would take time and patience, but he didn’t expect to finish last, missing the cut for only the 13th time in his pro career.
For the second consecutive day, he struggled to find fairways and his chipping let him down. Woods hit only eight greens in regulation and saved par only two of 10 times.
“We all have days like this,” Woods said. “Unfortunately, mine was in a public forum, a public setting. We take the good with the bad, and the thing is even on bad days like this, keep fighting, because on the good days you’ve got to keep fighting as well.”
Playing in cool, rainy conditions with Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth, Tiger started on the back nine and parred three of the first four holes. His bogey came at the par-4 11th, where he drove right under a tree, punched out, flew the green with his third shot and got up-and-down.
At the par-4 14th, Woods pulled his tee shot way left into a bush and was forced to take an unplayable lie. After taking a drop, he pitched back into the fairway, came up short of the green with his third shot and two-putted from 30 feet for a double bogey.
Things went from bad to worse at the par-5 15th. Tiger hit his drive into the water flanking the left side of the hole, played short of the green with his third shot, hit his fourth in the greenside bunker, skulled his fifth over the green, semi-chunked his sixth to the fringe and two-putted for a triple bogey.
Woods managed to save par from the left bunker at the short and noisy par-3 16th, where he was booed like everyone else for missing the green. Tiger turned the jeers into cheers by swishing a 20-foot putt.
Despite hitting a good drive just short of the green at the par-4 17th, which he drove Thursday, Woods couldn’t capitalize, missing the putting surface with his approach and absorbed another bogey. He also bogeyed the par-4 18th, failing to save par from a greenside bunker and made the turn in 8-over 44, equaling his highest-ever nine-hole score as a pro.
Moving to the front nine, Tiger parred the first three holes, but double bogeyed the par-3 fourth, where he missed the green with his tee shot, bladed his second shot into a bunker and couldn’t get up-and-down. Woods recorded his first birdie of the day at the par-4 fifth, where he hit a big drive and knocked his second shot from 165 yards within five feet of the pin and made the putt.
Tiger followed with consecutive bogeys at the sixth and seventh holes, made an eight-foot birdie putt at the par-4 eighth, then closed with a bogey at the par-4 ninth. Coupled with the missed cut at the PGA last year, it marked the first time in his pro career he has failed to survive two consecutive cuts.
His previous high score came in the third round of the 2002 Open Championship at Muirfield in in Scotland, where he shot 80 in miserable wind and rainy conditions.
“It was not a very good day from start to the end, but I fought until the end,” Woods said.
Tiger said his chipping woes are the result of a mechanical transition he has made in his swing from Foley to Como.
“I was caught right between patterns, just old pattern, new pattern,” said Woods. “And I got better, more committed to what I was doing on my back nine and hit some better shots, but still got a lot of work to do.”
Tiger flew home to Florida after the round to practice for next week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, where he has won seven times.
