For a few moments, it looked as if Tiger Woods was going to have himself a great week at the 152nd Open Championship. Then the reality of 48-year-old Tiger Woods at major championships set in. After getting it to 1 under early in the day, Woods could only manage to post a 79 in his first Open appearance since the 2022 edition at St. Andrews. He sat tied for 140th place entering the clubhouse.
A pair of pars started Tiger's round in the afternoon wave -- the slightly easier of the two -- with a lengthy birdie putt poured into the third hole to improbably push the three-time Champion Golfer of the Year to 1 under and within two of the early lead held by his buddy, Justin Thomas.
It was an actual moment for somebody who has not experienced a lot of them at majors in recent years.
An early birdie for Tiger at The 152nd Open. pic.twitter.com/LCnB5BsrEA
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 18, 2024
However, everything fell off a cliff from there. Woods played the rest of his first nine in 5 over and went out in 40. That stretch of six holes was highlighted by a double bogey on the par-3 5th where Woods had to pitch backwards out of a bunker, unable to get up and down for bogey.
Rory McIlroy, who only played one shot better with a 78 in the morning wave, said earlier in the day that Royal Troon is the type of place where "your misses get punished a lot more ... whether you miss it in a fairway bunker or even the rough."
That was true of Tiger's round, too. His misses were too wide, and his putter went cold over those last six holes on the front. He needed 32 putts overall on the day, which ranked right around 130th in the field at the time he finished.
The back nine was better but only marginally. Woods shot 3 over on that side, tallying just one birdie on each nine. It was not lights out golf, but even worse than that, it was not even brilliant "make a bunch of pars and get it in around even" golf, either. It was just miserable golf, with seemingly nowhere to go for the 15-time major winner.
"I didn't do a whole lot of things right today," Tiger said. "I made that putt on the 3rd hole, and then I think I had, what, three three putts today. I didn't hit my irons very close, and I didn't give myself a whole lot of looks today. I need to shoot something in the mid-60s tomorrow to get something going on the weekend."
Now comes the difficult part, the part he has not accomplished in a long time. Woods has not made the cut and finished the weekend at a major outside of the Masters since the 2019 PGA Championship at Harding Park. The last time he made the cut and finished the weekend at an Open came in 2018 when he finished T6. Before that, it was in 2014. It's just not something that has happened often over the back half of Woods' career.
Still, he has a chance. The cut will likely be around 5 or 6 over. It will probably take him scoring 1 under or better for Woods to make the weekend. So, either the game is going to have to sharpen up -- seems unlikely over the course of the next 15 hours -- or he's going to have to putt it a lot better than he did in Round 1.
Either way, it will take something Woods did not have Thursday for him to play those final 36 holes at Royal Troon.
