We talked about how disinterested in golf Tiger Woods has seemed recently. That passivity reared itself again during a disastrous opening nine at The Northern Trust that has left Tiger in a position he’s become accustomed to recently: missing the cut.
Woods went out in 39 (+4) in his opening round at The Northern Trust, flashing some wayward wedge shots that put him in a scrambling position he was not able to keep overcoming. On his first nine, he hit 5-of-7 fairways, but only 3-of-9 greens. For those of you newbies out there, that’s hacker level for Tiger.
Since winning the Masters in April, which almost feels like a dream at this point, Tiger seems to have lost the edge that helped him achieve that incredible moment through hard work, guts, guile and skill — all the attributes that made him the greatest golfer of his generation to begin with. Now? The dream has become a nightmare.
When he made the turn, Tiger was in 58th place of 58 players on the course. Yes, that’s DFL (no I will not tell you what that acronym stands for, you’ll have to figure it out yourself). The winning score of these tournaments is usually double-digits under par, so winning is all but out for Tiger after nine holes.
We’ll see if he wants to grind it out and keep playing golf this year; beyond missing the cut here, don’t forget, only the top 70 players in the FedExCup standings make it to the next tournament and then the Top 30 make it to the Tour Championship, which Tiger won last year. But it appears Tiger is ready to enjoy a long break before trying to refocus in his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’ 18-career major mark next year.
UPDATE: Tiger finished the round having shot 75 — for four over par.
