Won't be able to follow Tiger's second round live, but so far he's +2 through 5, which means he bogeyed the two tough holes and failed to birdie the two easy holes. This on a day when it appears there are birdies to be had on the front. So could this year's Masters be for Tiger what this year's Kraft Nabisco Championship was for Annika? The golf writers I've been reading praised him for grinding out a 73 in the first round when he was driving the ball badly and buried everybody else in the field for not taking advantage of his struggles to build a huge early lead on him--as if it's inevitable he'll snap back into form and play well the rest of the tournament--but how many times have you ever seen Tiger finish bogey-bogey after finally getting under par, much less in a major? His recovery shots from the trees on 17 and 18 were not the usual things of beauty we've come to take for granted from Tiger in that position. Is this just not his week?
[Update 4:47 am: Well, it may yet still be his week. After bogeying 6 of his first 12 holes today, he finished his last six holes at two-under to card a 74, which puts him at +3, in the top 20, and only 5 shots behind leader-in-the-clubhouse Brett Wetterich with a long weekend yet to come. Maybe Zach Johnson, Tim Clark, or Justin Rose will be able to break 70 today and break away from the field. We'll see.]
[Update 1:30 pm: Well, as you can see from spyder's comments and the pairings for Round 3, nobody pulled away from Tiger, despite him having one of the worst rounds in his Masters career on Friday. Sooooo, my questions remain--do you go by his first 30 holes and decide the problems with his swing are too much even for him to fix this weekend, or do you go by his last 6 holes and run with the feeling that he's going to reproduce his first win at Augusta, this time giving 21 more holes away to the field before getting into gear? I must be a hopeless romantic--I'm leaning toward the latter. It would be nice to see him continue playing well and force others to do the same if they want to win this thing.]
4 comments:
as of right now...
T1 Brett Wetterich +1 F -2
T1 Tim Clark -1 F -2
T1 Vaughn Taylor -1 17 -2
T1 Zach Johnson -1 16 -2
5 Justin Rose +2 10 -1
T6 Jerry Kelly -3 F E
T6 Vijay Singh -1 F E
T6 Henrik Stenson E 13 E
T9 David Howell +3 F +1
T9 Lucas Glover -1 F +1
not much different than above by the end...
Wetterich and Clark at -2; Taylor at -1; Kelly, Singh, Johnson and Rose at EVEN; then six at +1 (including Padraig Harrinton with his -4 on the day); Furyk at +2, and ten at +3 including Woods. The Villegas had one of those terrible days shooting a whopping +13, followed by Ferrie at +11 and Bryant at +10. Yes these are PGA card carrying players.
seems like Tiger is making a bit of a move indeed. But my gawd, how these greens are fickle beyond measure. You strike it to play slow and the ball skids off the green, you hit it strong and it trickles short by three feet.
oohohoh that shot at 17 into the woods, and then his incredible bizarre slice over the crowd into the bunker, and Tiger will be three back, and still in contention.
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