Tiger Woods misses cut at U.S. Open, still must prove he can compete at majors
Tiger Woods missed the cut at the U.S. Open as the all-time great must prove he can compete for the majors he once made look so routine.
When Tiger Woods stepped up to the podium after a 2-over 72, a reporter asked him to assess his tumultuous week at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. The 14-time major winner paused, smiled and said, “I didn’t play the first or second hole very well.”
With that, the greatest player of his generation could have stopped the press conference. There wasn’t much else to say. A triple-bogey 7 on Day 1 at the first opened his tournament. A double on Day 2 and a pair of bogies on the impossibly long par-3 2nd hole pushed Woods to 7-over on just those two holes. He was just 3-over on the rest of the golf course at the 118th U.S. Open, finishing 10-over for the first two days, 14 shots off his playing partner Dustin Johnson.
And it could have been even worse. Birdies on 17 and 18 pushed Woods back toward the cut line, but Woods was hardly interested in pyrrhic victories. He came to Shinnecock expecting to contend and said after his round Thursday he wanted to shoot in the 60’s in Round 2 to get back into the mix. Instead, he watched the championships all but slip out of his grasp.
Tiger admitted after his round, ham-and-egging it can be a short-term fix, but to win majors, it takes quality play and he simply didn’t bring it with him on that mega-yacht.
“You don’t win major championships slapping it all around the place and missing putts. You have to be on. And I’ve won a few majors in my career and I’ve played well at every single one of them.”
This will not be No. 15 for Woods after missing the cut at Shinny, but when asked if he still believes he can get there he jumped at the question, saying, “Absolutely.” When asked why he simply said: “Have you seen how I’ve been swinging?”
There were no excuses about setup or bellyaching over the weather or unlucky timing with his pairings; the better draw seems to have been early Thursday and afternoon Friday. Woods hung the blame on his short stick, the club he used to dominate fields in his prime.
“If I putted like I did at the beginning of the year, with this ball striking that would be ideal.”
For now, that will have to wait.
After their round together Friday, Justin Thomas insisted Woods wasn’t that far away from putting it all together, saying Tiger’s score didn’t reflect how well he played. And that’s where we are with Tiger Woods on this latest comeback trail.
His swing does look good enough for him to win again and despite what Paul Azinger said on the telecast about Woods turning pedestrian around the green, the reality is Tiger simply may no longer be superhuman. But he’s still fifth on Tour in strokes gained around the green.
If you’d told him before the week, Woods would stripe it off the tee, that the course was playing hard and other top players struggled, you likely would have been bullish on his chances to contend. Instead, Woods needed a birdie-birdie finish to have any shot at making the cut.
To make matters worse, Tiger had front row seats to watch Dustin Johnson shoot a 3-under 67 to get to 4-under for the championship with a chance to be the wire-to-wire champion. The leaderboard closely resembles 2016 at Oakmont when DJ was 4-under through 36 holes and no one else was better than 1-under.
After 36 holes on Friday, no one could beat TK-TK.
Woods wasn’t at Oakmont, still recovering from myriad health issues dating back to 2015 and beyond. We haven’t had opportunities to see him at the top of his game competing with the young players carrying his mantle for the next generation. And we may never get that. It may simply no longer be possible for Woods to muster the game to compete against the Dustin’s, Rory’s, and Jordan’s of today’s game, not for four days at a major championship.
But we can’t say for sure. This is only the second time we’ve seen him try. Tiger may still have the wherewithal to win a major. He certainly believes he does. It won’t be the 2018 U.S. Open, but the British Open is just a few weeks away.
And though he may not be Prime Tiger, he’s still Tiger Woods.