June18 OpenTiger

No matter what club he’s holding, once he settles over a shot, there’s nobody in the game you would rather put money on than Tiger Woods. Yet, just like the final round at the Masters two months ago, where he played in the final pairing and held his fate in his hands, Woods was flat out of magic.

Woods’ final stab at a tie was a triple-breaking 30-footer above the flag with eight feet of break to the cup.

“It’s not like I could hit it inside right, firm,” Woods said, the hint of a smile playing on his lips. “It was a putt I had to die, and if it gets anywhere below the hole it could run off the ridge.”

It was never close. Instead, he tapped in for a 2-over-par 72, a 286 total and a tie for second with Jim Furyk.

In the last four majors, Woods has gone 1-1-2-2, a remarkable run for anyone else. But alongside the dozen majors that make up the most glittering resume in pro golf are now 30 in which Woods has failed to win coming from off the pace.

It’s easy in hindsight to pick a half-dozen shots that would have made the difference. Woods said he wouldn’t go there, either – at least not anytime soon.

“I felt like I hit the ball pretty good all week,” he said, and the numbers backed him up. Woods led the field in greens in regulation, practically staging a clinic Saturday by hitting every one of the first 17 en route to a 69 that left him trailing third-round leader Aaron Baddeley by two and sent a chill down the collective spine of the rest of the field.

A questioner hadn’t even finished asking “Are these the hardest …” before Woods cut him off. “Without a doubt,” he replied. “You say Augusta is hard, yeah, but they have flat spots where they put the pins.”

Woods made just three birdies in the final two rounds, just one in the last 32 holes. Not even Tiger Woods can always fly past the obstacles that trip up the rest of us, find the missing piece of the puzzle or simply forge a new one. Sometimes life is just that hard.

So welcome to our world, Tiger, if only for one day.
Photo: Getty Images