Friday, June 15, 2001
Woods struggling to survive
at U.S. Open
By PAUL NEWBERRY
AP Sports Writer
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Tiger Woods was
just another player Friday at the U.S. Open. He hacked through
thick rough. He sprayed shots into deep bunkers. He was baffled
by the speed of the greens.
He even knocked the ball into a pond.
In striking contrast to the player who won
four straight majors, Woods fell behind by nine strokes at Southern
Hills Country Club, his quest to make it five in a row in desperate
peril.
In fact, his first priority was simply making
the cut.
Woods completed a rain-delayed first round
in the morning, shooting a 4-over-par 74 for his worst Open score
in three years. It also snapped a streak of 38 consecutive rounds
of par or better.
After a short break, Woods headed back to
the course for the second round. He had two more bogeys, scrambled
several times just to save par, then showed signs of getting his
swing in order.
Woods had a birdie at No. 12 — just
his second in the first 30 holes — and gave a slight pump
of the fist when the 13-footer dropped in.
He made it two in a row at the par-5 13th,
the same hole where he knocked one in the water a few hours earlier
while finishing the first round. The second time through, he sank
a 10-footer to get back to 4 under.
At No. 16, however, Woods gave a stroke
back by missing an 8-footer to save par.
The bogey left him nine behind co-leaders
Retief Goosen, Mark Brooks and J.L. Lewis, all at 4 under.
Goosen, a 32-year-old South African, was
the first-round leader with a 66, then reeled off 12 straight
pars in the second round.
Fellow South African Ernie Els, the champion
in 1994 and '97, is the only foreign-born player to win the Open
in the past two decades.
Brooks was the hottest player on the course.
After an opening 72, he birdied five of the first six holes and
finished with a 30 on the front side.
The biggest surprise was Lewis, who has
only one career victory on the PGA Tour but was on the leaderboard
all afternoon.
The second day was warm and sunny —
in stark contrast to the thunderstorms that halted play Thursday
afternoon.
Fifty-six-year-old Hale Irwin had an afternoon
tee time after thrilling the galleries on Thursday, getting in
a 3-under 67 before Southern Hills was drenched by rain. Irwin
got off to a shaky start, missing a 5-footer to save par on his
first hole.
Only four other players were in the red:
David Duval, Phil Mickelson, Loren Roberts, Stewart Cink, all
at 1 under.
Duval birdied the treacherous 18th hole
and finished the second round with a 69. About the same time,
Mickelson chipped in from the front of the green on his first
hole of the day.
Woods was 3 over when the weather horns
sounded Thursday. He returned early the next morning to make a
testy 8-footer for par at No. 10.
It didn't spark the customary Tiger charge.
Woods continued to spray shots all over the soggy course, going
seven holes over two days without even attempting a birdie putt.
That finally ended at No. 15, where he rolled in a 4-footer for
his only birdie of the round.
Woods finished with another bogey. His tee
shot skidded into the first cut of rough and he knocked his second
into the right bunker. After punching out to 12 feet, he missed
the putt.
Woods declined comment on his way to the
clubhouse, saying he would talk when the long day was over.
It got longer at No. 4. Woods buried his
second shot in the right bunker, blasted out short of the green
and needed a short putt for bogey.
He needed three shots to reach the green
on the 642-yard fifth hole, then three-putted from about 15 feet
for another bogey.
Woods opened with his worst score at the
Open since the first round in 1998, when he shot a 4-over 74 at
The Olympic Club in San Francisco. He wound up with a 10-over
290 — nine shots behind winner Lee Janzen.
After getting in seven holes Thursday, Goosen
took advantage of prime scoring conditions: damp, slower greens
and hardly any breeze. He birdied three of his first six holes
Friday, dropping his score to 6 under.
Goosen bogeyed 16 and 17 before saving par
at the treacherous final hole, ensuring that Irwin would not be
the oldest first-round leader of the Open since World War II.
“I probably didn't hit it as good as
I did yesterday,” the 32-year-old Goosen said. “I'm
just going to try to hold it together this afternoon and play
for pars.”
Goosen handed Woods his largest first-round
deficit in a major since he was nine shots back at the 1997 U.S.
Open.
Nine shots is also the largest first-round
deficit overcome by an eventual winner, set by Jack Fleck in 1955.
That's a far different position from last
year, when Woods won the first of his four straight majors by
a staggering 15 shots at Pebble Beach.
Irwin won the first of his three Open titles
in 1974 at Winged Foot — 18 months before Woods was born.
There would be another championship in 1979, then his memorable
victory in 1990 at Medinah, where he high-fived with fans along
the ropes and became the oldest Open champion at 45.
Eleven years later, he's again showing the
youngsters a thing or two.
“That experience factor,” he said,
“it's priceless.”
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