August 5 — Lucky for Tiger Woods there’s no cut at the 2010 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, because after carding an ugly 4-over 74 Thursday in his worst round ever at a course he had dominated, the still top-ranked golfer sat just eight players from DFL.
Woods, who has won seven times in 10 tries at Firestone Country Club, the venue for this week’s PGA Tour event, finished his opening round with a share of 70th place.
“Just because I like the golf course doesn’t mean I’m going to play well on it,” a frustrated Woods said to reporters. “You still have to execute, and I didn’t do that today. I did not execute the shots that I wanted to execute today, didn’t shape the ball the way I wanted to shape it, and certainly did not putt well.”
Hearing footsteps? While Woods could find only five fairways and 11 greens, and needed 32 first-round putts, the world’s No. 2, Phil Mickelson, moved in the opposite direction. Lefty, who has another shot this week at taking over the No. 1 position in the world golf rankings, carded a solid 4-under 66 to share second place with Kenny Perry, U.S. Open winner Graeme McDowell, and Adam Scott.
Mickelson, et al, trailed leader Bubba Watson, who shot a nearly flawless 6-under 64 that included a birdie at the 18th. His only bogey came at the par-3 15th.
All about Tiger. Despite Watson’s stellar round, all eyes, as usual, were on Woods and, to a lesser degree, Mickelson. The latter has squandered several opportunities to take over the top golf perch. Needing only a top-4 finish and Tiger to end up 38th or worse this week, Mickelson may actually grab that top slot from Woods, who has held it for 270 straight weeks.
Meanwhile, Woods’ game continued its downward spiral — not exactly what the goateed one was hoping for as a tuneup for next week’s final major, the PGA Championship. In seven tourneys since returning from his well-documented sex scandal-related hiatus, Woods has missed a cut and withdrawn with a neck injury.
On the numbers. Sure, Woods shared fourth at the 2010 Masters and has another top-10 finish. But before this week, he ranked 142nd in driving accuracy, 111th in greens in regulation (GIR), and 134th in putts per round. Do those sound like world-beating numbers to you?
Here’s some more fodder for stats geeks: Woods was 80th on the money list and 111th in FedEx Cup points (a figure that had organizers of Boston’s Deutsche Bank Championship worried, since Woods had yet to qualify for the 100-player field for the annual Labor Day weekend event that itself appeared to be in financial trouble). One could attribute those scores to Woods’ limited time back on tour, but perhaps even more troublesome was Tiger’s contention that he had his game pretty much where he wanted it.
Back to basics. “I’ve spent a lot of time doing my drills,” a confident-sounding Woods told the Golf Channel Wednesday, “going back to basics and feeling a lot more comfortable…setting up over the ball.”
Employing a new putter stroke with his hands forming more of a “V” on the grip, Woods missed a bunch of three- and four-foot putts that used to be in his gimme range. No more, as those shots sailed at least as far past the holes Thursday.
The different grip caused the loft to change during the path of the putt, which, in turn, caused the pace to change, Golf Channel’s Frank Nobilo pointed out.
“When you get the pace wrong, you start to miss,” Nobilo said. “He’s missing everything left.”
Size does matter. Then there’s Mickelson, who missed the cut at the Scottish Open and shaved an inch off his driver before Thursday’s opening round. Instead of his usual 45-inch big stick, Mickelson drove the ball with a 44-inch Callaway FT-9 driver to give him better control.
“Butch [Harmon, Mickelson's swing coach] had a good idea to go to a shorter driver, and so I went to the guys at Callaway and had [them put the] FT-9 head in a shaft that’s only 44 inches and a shaft that’s also 20 grams heavier,” Mickelson told reporters following his round. The reason, he said, was to hit the ball straighter, even if not as far.
“I thought the ball still came off pretty hot, and I wasn’t displeased with how far it was going,” Mickelson said. “My misses when I missed the fairway was inside the tree line so I always had a shot into the green, and I thought that led to a lot more aggressive iron shots.”
No. 1 up for grabs. Where Mickelson has especially failed is in wresting the top spot from Woods, despite having ample chances to do so. It’s a whole new week, however, and if Phil “The Thrill” can put three more rounds like Thursday’s together, he could well be the No. 1 golfer in the world by week’s end.
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Kay also writes the Boston Golf Examiner and National Golf Examiner blogs. You may reach her at mlek@comcast.net)
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