Tiger Woods’ comeback continued with a one-under 71 on day three of the Hero World Challenge, but much like rounds one and two, the 15-time Major champion felt it could’ve been several shots better.
Back-to-back bogeys on holes one and two were the result of pulled irons, but he rebounded to birdie four of the remaining seven on the front side, covering the opening side of Albany Golf Club in -2 on the day and -6 for the week thus far.
Two bogeys to just the one birdie on the way home may have been the best closing nine holes of the three rounds to date, but a sloppy dropped shot at 11 resulted in the tournament host having a stern word with himself, and a flyer at the last resulted in a second bogey which took him back to level-par for the tournament.
“Generally, normally it’s short game, the touch and feels,” Woods said afterwards when quizzed about the most difficult aspect of returning after a prolonged absence. But when you’re chipping off bermuda like this, and this is probably one of the hardest golf courses we face all year round to try and hit chips, ball sits down, you’ve get to hit the ball up. And early in the week we were, basically like a roundtable, asking each other what are you going to do, how are you going to play this, and you never find that at any other tournament. This place is a little bit different.
“As far as my feels, generally as the week progresses my feel for pin high gets better and better each and every day. I think that’s an indication this week, I know the score doesn’t indicate what I think I could have shot today, but it was definitely clearer than it was yesterday.”
Woods reiterated the fact that the foot and ankle issues which caused him to withdraw from the Masters mid-way through round three and undergo subsequent surgery remain absent, but that he’s far from pain free. He’s delighted with how his body has performed, however, and game sharpness as opposed to pain have been his biggest challenges this week.
“I’m very excited at how I have felt physically,” he said. “Knocking off some rust. I mean, we can always knock off rust at home, but it’s so different come game time. As I said to you guys earlier in the week, game time speed is different than at home speed. To be able to knock off some of the rust as I have this week and showed myself that I can recover each and every day, that was kind of an unknown as far as I’ve walked this far, I’ve done all my training, but add in playing and concentration and adrenaline and all those other factors that speed up everything, I’m very excited how the week’s turned out.”
Tiger did reveal that the long list of injuries and surgeries mean that there are certain things he just can’t do anymore, and that’s something that he’s come to terms with.
“There’s a lot of things I can’t do that I used to be able to do with a golf ball,” he explained. “I used to be able to call upon any shape, any shot whenever you wanted and was able to contort myself to those shots. I can’t do that anymore. As I said earlier, I’ve always been one that has been able to hit the ball in the middle of the face, so that’s been good. I think I was saying to you guys yesterday that I’m hitting the ball further than I did when I first came out on Tour. I’m slower, but tech, I’m still able to hit the ball in the middle of the face so there’s always an advantage to do that.”
As rumours circulate that the R&A and USGA are set to announce a proposed rollback for all golfers, not just bifurcation that would see pros and amateurs use a different golf ball, Woods, remains firm in his belief that bifurcation is the way forward.
“Yeah, I don’t know what year they indicated,” he replied when asked his thoughts on the proposal. “I think maybe late 2020s somewhere in there, right? This has been I guess the talk ever since I’ve been out on Tour. And then to finally see it come to this point where I think both governing bodies who control the rules around the world are going to come to a collaborative understanding of how far — we just doesn’t have enough property anymore. So I think that understanding that yeah, we’ve been hammering the ball needs to slow down, but it has kept speeding up my entire time on career and here we are.”
“As I told you guys, I’ve always been for bifurcation. I’ve always said that. Just like wood bats and metal bats,” he added.
Leave a comment