Tiger Woods walks to the 17th green during Round One of the AT&T National at Congressional Country Club
Since I’m waiting out the gridlock traffic in the media center, I might as well toss up a gratuitous post on Tiger Woods, your tournament host. Anyone catch the coverage today, anyway? I’m guessing some of you were more interested in the DVR’d Irish Open, Wimbledon and/or the Euro soccer semifinals.
Well, you didn’t miss too much in the first round of the AT&T National. As you’ve heard, the U.S. Open that didn’t happen last year is taking place this week at Congressional Country Club.
Tiger shot a ho-hum one-over 72 to trail 18-hole leader Bo Van Pelt by five strokes. He didn’t do anything excellent, but the glaring weakness that cost him was his bunker play.
“I didn’t hit it that bad today,” said Woods, who is currently tied for 30th. “I just didn’t get a lot out of my round, a couple short game shots on the back nine out of those bunkers, a lot of sand in those bunkers and we have to hit the ball a little bit closer to it, and I didn’t do that, and I stuck too many of them in the ground.”
Wait, so what’s the issue?
“There’s so much sand in these bunkers,” he said. “There’s just a lot of sand in them. My 60 is not built for this much sand, not designed for that, designed for less sand, so I have to make an adjustment and hit the ball a little bit closer, make sure I hit a little bit closer to the golf ball, and I just didn’t do it.”
Yeah, those were pretty ugly bunker shots on Nos. 15 and 16, where he knocked them to 14 and 30 feet, respectively.
Woods, who admitted his short game had hurt him recently in his pre-tourney presser, said despite the poor bunker play, he was pleased overall around the greens.
“Otherwise it was actually pretty good,” he said. “I had to get up‑and‑down quite a bit today.”
After he striped his first tee shot, Tiger didn’t hit another fairway until No. 8. He straightened out his drives coming in, though.
Oh, don’t blame Tiger for the difficult course setup and firm conditions. He’ll give feedback on how he’d like to see things before the tournament week starts, but once it does, as a player and a competitor, he stays out of it.
Due to the springy greens, he tended to fire a little away from the pin, even if he had a sand wedge in his hands.
“It’s very similar to what we played at Olympic,” said Tiger, referring to the U.S. Open a few weeks ago. “It’s survival. The ball will bounce as high as it flies on some holes. It’s an adjustment we all have to make.”
He also agreed with other guys that Congressional played like a major championship on Thursday.
“It did,” said Tiger, who missed the 2011 U.S. Open due to injury. “It’s certainly, I think, a little retribution for what happened last year. Don’t be mad at me, I didn’t play.”
However, the setup is different because there’s no graduated rough, making it arguably more challenging if you’re not accurate off the tee.
“If it’s not in the fairway then it’s in the deep stuff,” he said. “So it’s a different setup. It’s hard and fast, and we have to be careful a lot of times, and when you have an opportunity to be aggressive, better do it.”
It’ll be interesting to see how the course plays the next three days, especially in the afternoon. If you’ve got a morning tee time, take advantage of it before the greens bake out!
(Getty Images/Rob Carr)
(whatever). My understanding was back in 2010 that Tiger was fired as the official host of this event, while the Foundation was retained as the charitable beneficiary. Does anyone know when/how/if that has officially changed ? Was there an actual announcement ? Per your post, he gets to give “feedback”, but why in the world is that appropriate for an active competitor ?
You’re right Stephanie. Tennis and Soccer more compelling.
I was at work while Tiger was finishing up his round, and saw he shot 72, was t30th and 5 shots off the pace. Sort of a meh round, and one in which he didn’t play great.
Came home, read the coverage, and thought he must have shot 80 and be close to DFL.
Tiger has had a problem turning meh rounds into good scores this year, and this was another example. But you don’t shoot under par every rd, es not on a course as difficult as Congo is playing.
Chris is a racist.
Another day, another excuse. His wedges weren’t designed for that much sand??? Nike’s gotta love Tiger blaming the equipment. Doesn’t he play the course before hand and wouldn’t he have a bunch of wedges with different bounces laying around? Or couldn’t Nike have custom ground one for him? Very weird comment from Tiger.
Its pretty simple usually – when Tiger finds fairways he’s near the top. But he hasn’t really been tight with his bunker play all year, and his short game kind of peaked at Memorial.
At Olympia, he had 2 bunker shots on Friday that announcers described as pretty simple and straightforward and “he should get up and down from there”. One of which Friday and Saturday were at the driveable 7th hole which cost him 2 birdies.
I know you can’t always spend hours practicing everything – and he’s been with his kids (hasn’t really practiced last week though ? what ?), but his bunker play has needed work for at least a month.
I don’t want to hear the don’t have a club for this – go into the NIKE trailer and have them make you one. You’re Tiger Woods. That’s garbage.
And For The Record – nobody on this side of the pond is watching soccer, and will only watch Wimbledon in the final weekend when its the final 4.
As far as the Irish Open…. G-MAC obviously won the pro-am over RMc because he played with Carl Spackler. +1 for G-MAC.
I think Keegan has the right idea. Go hang out over there, get a few links reps before the Open Champ.
BTW – early prediction for the OC – Rickie Fowler.
As usual, Woods was the only golfer out there today and was the only golfer to shoot over par. Enough already.We are tired of the same old theme,the drum beats, the beat downs, the hubris, the hate-filled diatribe, the love-taps(sic). The 70 year old Van Sickle in his article today called Woods an old 36, and I wonder how he refers to himself.That comment IMO sounds racist, because he never ever refers to Ernie, Phil, Furyk, Stricker, Or Davis Love who have many more years playing golf or much older.
Sand conditions can change from day to day. The grounds crew may have added fresh sand to the bunkers after the practice rounds which could throw off the bounce he needed on his wedge. I tend to believe Tiger if he has an issue with equipment. He rarely (if at all) says anything about his equipment when he has a bad round. It’s not like he could go have the Nike trailer grind him a new wedge at the turn.
Geesh people….any chance to bash the guy huh?