Woods’ driving may cost him at the Open

When Tiger Woods shot a career-worst 85 in the third round of the Memorial Tournament, the 79-time PGA Tour winner found four different water hazards. His tee shots cost him shot after shot, and even when the tee balls didn’t find something surrounded by stakes and paint, his ball was often offline.

The inaccurate driving on Saturday, however, wasn’t a one-off. Woods has a hard time finding the short grass. In limited action this season, Woods has hit 48.98 percent of fairways. He hasn’t played enough rounds this season to rank in any category, but if he did, he would rank 200th on the PGA Tour out of 202 players. In his career, Woods has finished just one season – an injury-ravaged 2011 – hitting less than half of the fairways.

That spells bad news for Woods heading into the U.S. Open, which is the tightest driving test in competitive golf. U.S. Open host Chambers Bay may have wider fairways than the typical pencil-thin setup found at most national championships, but the challenge of the Robert Trent Jones Jr. design is in position and placement. If Woods can’t place his ball where he needs to get the right bounce to get to an ideal spot to approach these large, undulating (an understatement) greens, he’s going to be in trouble and looking at a quick exit.

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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