GOLF THE MASTERS:FROM THE very first swish of his driver on the first tee, Tiger Woods knew it would be one of those days. The ball snap-hooked into the trees down the left. It happened again on the second hole. Another snap hook, another shake of the head as the ball arched left towards the trees.
Between snap hooks and mud balls – oh, there were three of them – it was a bad day all round for the four-time Masters champion.
Was it any wonder that the practice ground beckoned almost as soon as he had signed his card for an opening round of level par 72 that could have been worse? “Today, I squeezed a lot out of that round,” conceded Woods with an air of honesty expected of a man who had escaped a succession of poor shots but ground out a score.
What had gone wrong? “Old patterns, yeh, just old patterns,” remarked Woods of the problems that beset him from start to finish. Like what? “Some of my old stuff from a few years ago. I’ve had to try and work through it and every now and again it pops up. Today, it popped up a little bit. Same old motor patterns. Now I’m struggling with it all the way around with all the clubs. I didn’t hit it very good at all.”
A fortnight ago, after winning the Bay Hill Invitational, all seemed right again with Woods’s world. The work he had done with coach Sean Foley had brought another tournament win, his 72nd on the US Tour which put him behind only Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus in the all-time list, and Woods came to Augusta National with an extra zip.
Reality can bite hard around this course, and it did for the once long-time world number one. Snap hooks tend to eat into your confidence, and back-to-back tee-shots off the first and second tees – with no excuse of a mud ball – were enough to serve as a reminder to Woods that “the process,” as he is inclined to call his work with Foley, is far from a finished article yet.
“I hit some of the worst golf swings I’ve ever hit,” said Woods. “I just hung in there and grinded my way around the golf course and stayed very patient, stayed in the moment.”
Woods’s problems had started on the range and continued onto the golf course. “I just felt my way around, really grinded. I know how to play this golf course. I think it’s just understanding what I have to do.”
Despite those opening two snap-hooks, Woods somehow managed to to save par on each of the first and second holes. His luck ran out on the seventh, where he got one of those “mud balls” that can send a shot off on a trajectory unintended by the shot-maker. Woods became the victim on such a shot on the seventh, where – with mud clinging to the ball – it hooked about 20 yards off its intended line. He ran up a bogey, his only dropped shot of the front nine, where his birdies on the third and eighth enabled him to turn in 35, one under.
His only birdie on the back nine came on the 10th, and he failed to birdie either of the par fives – the 13th and 15th holes – and finished with back-to-back bogeys on the 17th and 18th to rub salt into his wounds. “I really stayed committed to what I was doing, I just made some bad swings. That’s fine. My commitment to each and every shot, what I was doing, my alignment, my setup, everything, was something that I’m excited about and I can take some positives going into (the second round). At least I have something to build on.”
And with that, Woods was off to the practice ground.
