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NASSAU, Bahamas — Tiger Woods opened with 4 birdies in seven holes. The closing stretch was one other wrestle Friday within the Hero World Problem, which included a putt that went off the inexperienced and into the bunker.
It added to a 2-under 70 that left Woods 10 photographs behind Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth however nonetheless getting round simply wonderful at Albany and slowly getting again into the groove.
However the again 9 is not serving to. Woods shot 39 on the again within the opening spherical, and he shot 38 on Friday with a 30-foot birdie putt on the par-3 seventeenth.
For Woods, there wasn’t an ideal thriller why he wasn’t ending higher.
“Perhaps as a result of I have not performed shortly,” he stated with fun.
That is his first event since he withdrew earlier than ending his third spherical on the rain-delayed Masters in April, and he had ankle fusion surgical procedure a couple of weeks later. Woods hasn’t completed 72 holes for the reason that 2022 Masters.
“I am rusty,” he stated. “This golf course will deliver that out of you. You may run the tables right here or go the opposite method. Sadly, I have not completed off my rounds the way in which I would wish to.”
Scheffler had eight birdies on a day suited to good scoring. He misplaced the lead on No. 18 when he went from the tough to a waste space behind the opening, his ball in a slight melancholy. He did effectively to get it out to fifteen ft however missed the par putt.
“So long as you may hold it out of hassle, you are going to play effectively,” Scheffler stated.
Spieth had eagle putts on 4 holes — two of them par-4s — did not miss a fairway and managed a comparatively boring spherical, no less than in comparison with Thursday when he made solely 5 pars. This time he was bogey-free for a 67.
Scheffler and Spieth have been at 9-under 135, one shot forward of Open champion Brian Harman, who shot 31 on the again 9 to salvage a 69.
For Woods, the difficulty once more got here on the par-5 fifteenth gap, the place he took double bogey within the first spherical after attempting to cut it out of a bush within the sandy soil. This time, he piped his drive and had solely a 9-iron to the inexperienced. However he pulled it right into a bunker, leaving little inexperienced between him and the opening, and blasted it out to 35 ft.
That wasn’t the issue. His putt was too agency, racing by the opening, off the inexperienced and again into the bunker. He needed to make a 15-footer to flee with bogey.
Woods as soon as hit a putt off the thirteenth inexperienced right into a tributary of Rae’s Creek on the Masters. However he could not recall hitting a putt into the bunker.
“That was not a superb putt,” he stated. “It was downwind, and I hit it method too laborious. It bought occurring the wind and bought occurring the grain and was gone. I used to be clearly ticked. On the finish of the day, it was higher than yesterday.”
He additionally had a three-putt from inside 15 ft for bogey on the thirteenth, missed a brief birdie likelihood on the reachable par-4 14th and dropped a shot on the sixteenth, the hardest at Albany.
Woods was 5 photographs higher than his opening spherical, although nonetheless out of the combination in fifteenth place within the 20-man discipline.
“I believe it is simply attempting to get my feels again and the mindset over a shot and what number of issues run by my thoughts of hitting the shot the correct trajectory, the correct window, the correct form, the correct distance,” he stated. “I did a greater job on that immediately, and I am positive I will do a greater job of that tomorrow.
“The extra rounds and extra reps I can get beneath my belt competitively, I believe these issues will begin coming again.”
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