Woods shoots birdie-free, 5-over 77 in Dubai Desert Classic opener

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Kicking off the second of a planned four events in a five-week stretch, Tiger Woods posted a score one stroke worse than how he opened his 2017 campaign at Torrey Pines.

Woods shot a 5-over, birdie-free 77 to kick off the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, leaving him in a tie for 121st place when play was halted due to darkness. That leaves Woods 12 shots behind leader Sergio Garcia, whose 65 has him a stroke ahead of Felipe Aguilar and George Coetzee.

The 14-time major winner appeared to experience tightness and discomfort with his back, operated on three times since March 2014, as he began the round. At times, Woods had a noticeable gimp, walking with his upper stomach out, trying to reduce pain. The results corresponded to Woods’ expressions, bogeying the easy par-5 10th, his first hole, before coming up a half-club short at the par-3 11th and needing three whacks with the putter to bogey the 12th hole.

After the first three holes left him in a hole and discouraged, Woods made 12 pars and three bogeys the rest of the way. Woods’ assessment after hitting 10 of 14 fairways? He couldn’t buy a putt.

“I left probably about 16 putts short. I just couldn’t get the speed of these things and, consequently, it added up to a pretty high number,” Woods said.

“I just could not hit the putts hard enough. I left every putt short. What I thought was downgrain, downwind, would be quick downhill and I still came up short. Into the wind, uphill putts into the grain, I put a little more hinge on it going back to try to get a little more hit into it and it still didn’t work. So I’ll be trying to figure something out.”

The positive for Woods is that the driving game was much better than the two-way miss he displayed at Torrey Pines. In particular, Woods took comfort in the drives he hit on his final two holes.

“The last two drives I hit off of eight and nine today, there’s something different,” he said. “I need to figure out what the hell I did that was different and then replicate it for hopefully another 54 more holes.”

Though Woods is 9 over par in his first three rounds of 2017, he’s not discouraged. In fact, with poor weather coming in just ahead of his Friday afternoon tee time, Woods, as he has in the past, is welcoming the potentially lousy conditions as a way to get back in the mix.

“Hopefully this wind blows tomorrow and I shoot a good round and get back to even par now,” he said. “That’s certainly not out of the realm of winning the golf tournament.”

Devil Ball Golf – Golf – Yahoo Sports

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