Tiger Woods posts worst score in a major

Tiger Woods posts worst score in a major











Eric Adelson June 16, 2013 5:44 PMYahoo Sports






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Tiger Woods reacts after putting on the eighth green at the U.S. Open. (AP)ARDMORE, Pa. – Tiger Woods wearing red. Sunday afternoon at the U.S. Open. Grandstand overflowing with fans holding their breath as a ball rolls toward the cup, Swoosh rolling over itself again and again.



It's an iconic image – in fact, if you were born in 1990 or after, it might be the only iconic image you associate with the game of golf. And yet here at Merion Golf Club, on this U.S. Open Sunday, all the drama belonged a thousand yards away from Woods' thousand-yard stare. His par putt on 17 veered right and left him at 13-over par for the tournament. He would finish there and card the worst score to par in a major in his professional career.

Just one bad event for the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world? Easy to say, especially on a brutal course that's about as suited to his game as the city of Philadelphia is to Mai Tais with little umbrellas. This is the course that caused Jason Dufner to toss his wedge in the drink and pushed Rory McIlroy to bend his club into disrepair as if he was Bo Jackson after a strikeout.





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Tiger Woods finished the 2013 U.S. Open at 13-over. (Yahoo! Sports)But Woods is supposed to be better than them, tougher than them, and able to bend even the nastiest courses to his will. Now he's got a left elbow injury of unknown severity, two horrendous performances in a row, and five full years without a major championship.



Tiger Woods the legend is cemented in history. Tiger Woods the 30-something golfer with a history of knee surgeries? Well, hmmm.

Here are the two issues that should worry fans of Woods:

1. His putting: The old Woods could make a 12-foot putt simply by scaring it into the hole with his menacing glare. This version of Woods? Mediocre. He had some reasons – detractors will say excuses – for his problems this week, including the greens being "grainy" and the pin placements being only a step away from a ridge leading down to trouble. He called Merion "tricky," which is the same word he used earlier in the week to describe a Westchester course that also gave him trouble.

2. His weekend play: Woods' overall progress since the fire hydrant episode in 2009 has been upward, but he tends to fall away on the weekends, especially in majors. He was 3-over going into Saturday's third round, and he ended up 10 shots worse than that. Now, is this a coincidence? Is it because of the putting struggles? Or is it because of the wear on his surgically repaired legs? Woods is a terrific athlete, yet let's face it: He puts a lot of torque on that left knee every time he swings the club. That can add up on any man who's been playing a sport as aggressively as Tiger has for his entire life.

Woods sure didn't seem vexed after his round. Asked what he did well and what he did poorly this week, he shot back, "I did a lot of things right. Unfortunately I did a few things wrong, as well."

Positive self-talk is a hallmark of great golfers and great champions, but Woods did more than a few things wrong at Merion – he scored bogey or worse 21 times vs. 10 birdies.

A lot of us take dramatic Sundays with Tiger Woods for granted. But that iconic Woods moment – the one we can replay in our memory over and over again – seems quite far away now.

Horschel joins pantheon of colorful golf pants

Horschel joins pantheon of colorful golf pants











PGA.COM June 16, 2013 6:07 PM

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"Well here they are! The highly anticipated highly controversial....Octopus pants!," tweeted Billy Horschel …



ARDMORE, Pa. (AP) -- Considering the history of outrageous pants in golf, Billy Horschel had to go a long way to stand out.

But the Octopus-print pair he donned for Sunday's final round at the U.S. Open did the trick. Somewhere, John Daly, long considered golf's leader in the clubhouse for colorful fashion, is rummaging through his closet for a response.

Horschel, a former University of Florida golfer, teed off in eighth place at 3 over, four strokes behind final-round leader Phil Mickelson. While Mickelson went with an all-black ensemble, Horschel tweeted a photo of himself in the navy and white giant squid-patterned slacks, set off by a magenta-toned polo shirt, before heading over to the course.

"Well here they are! The highly anticipated highly controversial....Octopus pants!"

Strange as the pants looked, few people should have been surprised by the unusual fashion statement. Eclectic only begins to describe Horschel; according to his PGA Tour bio, he also devoured the Twilight young-adult vampire novels in the span of two weeks and is "a believer in Bigfoot and UFOs."

But as far as fashion, Horschel is hardly alone. Loud pants are such a staple of the sport that a number of amateur tournaments are organized each year requiring participants to show up in stunningly wild slacks.

At the professional level, Englishman Ian Poulter has long been considered the front-runner in today's game, wearing everything from his native flag to something best described as an old TV test pattern. Rickie Fowler has pushed the boundary in terms of color, but usually wears the same tone from head to toe.

But just like those two, Horschel has no problem making a "look-at-me" statement. Anybody who saw him pumping his fists and hopping around while celebrating his first tour win in New Orleans earlier this year -- after rolling in a 20-footer to win -- knows that.

Woods matches his worst-ever score in a major

Woods matches his worst-ever score in a major












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Tiger Woods shot a 4-over 74 Sunday, which gave him his worst 72-hole score as a pro in the U.S. Open, and tied his high score in any major at 13-over 293.(Getty Images)

PGA.COM June 16, 2013 7:47 PM


By Doug Ferguson, Associated Press

ARDMORE, Pa. -- This isn't the kind of record Tiger Woods had in mind at the U.S. Open.

Woods went out-of-bounds on his second tee shot of the final round at Merion on Sunday and closed with a 4-over 74. That gave him his worst 72-hole score as a pro in the U.S. Open, and it tied for his high score in any major.

"I did a lot of things right," Woods said. "Unfortunately, I did a few things wrong, as well."

Woods finished at 13-over 293.

His previous high score in a U.S. Open was 290 at The Olympic Club in 1998 and Shinnecock Hills in 2004. Woods shot 294 at Oakland Hills in 1996 as an amateur.

Just two days ago, Woods was four shots out of the lead and very much in the hunt to end his five-year drought in the majors. Then, he went 76-74 for his worst weekend in a major championship. Just over two weeks ago, the world's No. 1 player had won three of his last four events on the PGA Tour and was starting to establish his dominance.

But he looked ordinary at Merion.

Starting the final round 10 shots behind, Woods made a birdie putt on the opening hole. Instead of a fist pump, he offered only a mild wave. Whatever hopes he had of at least getting his name on the leaderboard ended quickly. Woods pushed his tee shot to the right on the par-5 second hole, over the trees and out-of-bounds. His next tee shot was close to going out-of-bounds, stopping a few yards away in front of a tree. He wound up with a triple bogey.


It was his only big number of the week, though his 20 bogeys were startling.

"I struggled with the speed all week," Woods said. "These greens are grainy. It's one of the older bent grasses -- creeping bent. I struggled with the speed, especially right around the hole. Putts were breaking a lot more. I gave it a little more break and then it would hang. That's kind of the way it was this week."

The 293 matched his high score at any major, last year at the Masters when he tied for 40th.

Woods didn't mention any pain in his left elbow, though he kept that a mystery throughout the week. He was flexing and shaking his left hand on shots out of the rough early in the week, saying only that it was painful. He later revealed that he first hurt it at The Players Championship last month, which he won. But he didn't mention the shot or even which round it happened.

Merion remained a mystery for Woods throughout the week. For the first time since Olympic in 1998 -- the year he was rebuilding his swing -- he failed to break par in any of the four rounds at a U.S. Open.

"It played tricky. The rough was up," Woods said. "They were raking the rough up every morning into the grain, and the pins were really tough."

Woods plays again in two weeks at the AT&T National at Congressional, where he is the defending champion. His next major is the British Open at Muirfield, where in 2002 he was going for the calendar Grand Slam until he got caught in a vicious weather pattern of a cold, sideways rain and shot 81 to fall from contention.

The final major of the year is at Oak Hill for the PGA Championship, where 10 years ago Woods never shot better than 72 and wound up at 12-over 292.

"There's always a lesson to be learned in every tournament, whether you win or lose," Woods said. "I'll look back at the things I did right and the things I did wrong."