Tiger Woods returns to The Open Championship

A look back at Tiger Woods’ history at The Open Championship and his chances in 2018 at Carnoustie.

For the first time in three years, Tiger Woods is back at The Open Championship and he couldn’t be more thrilled. The three-time winner of golf’s oldest major championship has always enjoyed links-style golf and got a little more emotional than we’re used to seeing when discussing his return to this tournament and Tiger believes this is the best chance he’s had during this latest comeback to claim his 15th major championship. But more on that in a minute. First, let’s take a quick look at Woods’ history at The Open.

This will be Tiger’s 20th appearance at The Open and this tournament has been very kind to him over the years, even if sometimes he’s made a few of these golf courses look a little too easy. First playing this event as the reigning U.S. Amateur champion in 1995 at the Old Course at St. Andrews, site of the John Daly vs. Costantino Rocca showdown, Tiger finished tied for 68th but came back the following year at Royal Lytham & St. Anne’s as low amateur, tying for 22nd.

His first time teeing it up at The Open as a professional came in 1997, the same year he took the golf world by storm with his victory at The Masters, and he carded another top-25 finish. He finished third in 1998 and tied for seventh at Carnoustie (more on that in a moment) in 1999 before mowing down the field with a then-record 19-under finish at St. Andrews in 2000, winning by eight shots and becoming the youngest in history to complete the career Grand Slam. It was the second of three major championship wins that season after winning the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by a record 15 shots and he would go on to hold all four majors at one time after victories at the 2000 PGA Championship and the 2001 Masters in what would become known as the Tiger Slam.

He carded two more top-10 finishes at The Open over the next four years before once again winning at St. Andrews in 2005, completing the career Grand Slam for a second time at just 29 years of age with a five-shot victory over Colin Montgomerie. He followed that up the following year at Royal Liverpool with the most emotional win of his career, besting Chris DiMarco by two shots on a fantastic final day in which Woods broke down after sinking his final putt. This was just over two months after his father and mentor, Earl, had died after a long bout with cancer and there’s never been a time throughout his storied career when we saw that much emotion pour out of Tiger Woods. His embrace with longtime caddie Steve Williams was truly one of the most special moments in the history of The Open Championship.

While he would card a couple of more top-10s over the next nine years, he also missed the cut on a couple of occasions, including his last appearance at this tournament in 2015, and missed the tournament altogether in 2008 and 2011 due to injuries, the first coming after that miraculous win at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, Woods’ last major championship win, and missed 2015-2017.

But Tiger is back at The Open and he’s played fairly well each time the tournament has been held at Carnoustie. In 1999, the year most will remember for the Jean Van De Velde collapse, Tiger was very unhappy with the setup, calling it unfair and the most difficult place he’d ever played. He still tied for seventh that week at 10-over, which doesn’t sound great but when the winner is at 6-over, it doesn’t sound quite so terrible.

He returned to Carnoustie in 2007, the year of the Padraig Harrington-Sergio Garcia showdown, and was much more upbeat about the setup. He enjoyed being able to get more creative with shots than he could in the U.S. He started strong with a 2-under 69 but a 74 on Friday made it very difficult to catch up. He shot 69-70 on the weekend to finish in a tie for 12th.

So now the big question: Can Tiger Woods contend at The Open Championship at Carnoustie in 2018? He certainly seems to think so. But what else is new? Tiger believes he can win each and every time he tees it up, even now at the age of 42 and four back surgeries later. But the truth is, he can win this tournament. It’s just going to be really hard. But that’s going to be the case for everyone out there this week.

It hasn’t rained much in Scotland this summer and Carnoustie is burned out. The fairways are essentially brown everywhere and are running very hot. It’s going to be hard to control distance and accuracy with driver and that may just work to Tiger’s advantage as keeping the big stick in play has been somewhat of an issue in this latest comeback. But Tiger may not have been playing driver here anyway.

When his won his last Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, the course was basically playing the same way and Woods famously hit only one driver all week, keeping himself out of trouble by positioning himself with irons off the tee, a strategy he’s been using in early practice rounds at Carnoustie this week. He rolled out a 7-iron approximately 215 yards on the par-4 fourth hole to stay away from the bunkers and hit a 3-iron 333 yards at the 18th to avoid going into the Barry Burn in front of the green, something that would actually be in play some 400-plus yards away. The last man to win The Open at Carnoustie, now-46-year-old Padraig Harrington, nearly hit one 450 in his own practice round and we all know that Woods has a bit more strength than Harrington.

However, if Woods does choose to go with driver on certain holes, he may not find as much trouble as people think. The Open rough is said to be playing very thin and wispy this week and strong players such as Tiger shouldn’t have too much trouble hitting out of it. But I just don’t think that’s going to be necessary. His iron play has been very solid this year — he currently ranks third on the PGA Tour in strokes gained/approach this season — and should be able to rely on that aspect of the game to keep himself in it.

What will likely make the difference, as usual, is his putter. It’s been no secret that he’s struggled with the short stick this year, which is why he chose to move away from the Scotty Cameron that won 13 of his 14 major titles and move to the new TaylorMade mallet-style putter with grooves on the face. He was much better on the greens on his way to a tie for fourth at the Quicken Loans National three weeks ago, a tournament in which he shot 65-68-66 over the final three rounds.

Tiger admits that he’s always had problems with slow greens throughout his career and the greens this week at Carnoustie aren’t expected to be as fast as what a lot of these players are used to, which causes a different kind of problem than a place like Shinnecock Hills did last month at the U.S. Open. Woods’ new putter is a little hotter coming off the face, which should help remedy some of that. In past Open appearances, Tiger has used lead tape to help with the weight to get the ball rolling, something that he shouldn’t need to do this week.

It’s very important that Tiger get off to a good start this week. After basically taking himself out of the tournament at the U.S. Open on day one, even hole one for that matter with that disastrous triple-bogey, he needs to build confidence at a major if he ever wants to compete, let alone win one again. As per usual, Tiger Woods will be the talk of The Open going in. He begins his quest for major number 15 at 10:21 a.m. Eastern alongside Hideki Matsuyama and Russell Knox.

The world will be watching.

Next: Tiger doesn't care if opponents are scared of him

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