DUBLIN, Ohio – It was more than avoiding losing the cut for the first time in 18 appearances at the Tiger Woods Memorial Tournament. It was also more than just rebounding from a poor performance in the second round.
Woods wanted to test himself after giving him problems during Friday’s second round and also play 36 additional holes after a five-month break from the tour.
He responded by shooting a 1-under 71 in the third round on Saturday.
“Overall I felt like I had played well, controlled the ball well,” said Woods. “I made a bad hit there at 3, but other than that, it was a pretty good and solid day.”
Woods would not have made the cut if he had not closed the second round with two birds and an equal. So he had to wait most of the day to see if the cut line would go from 2 to 3.
“I was lucky that the cut came back,” he said. “Yesterday I made a small turn at the end, and sometimes it seemed that it was at 2, but luckily I sneaked in at 3.
Woods’ body language was drastically different during his shift on Saturday than on Friday, when he shot a 4 out of 76 after he started dealing with back problems during his warm-up.
On Saturday, there was not much grimace after hitting a blow or bad fairway misses like Friday. Woods was 10 out of 14 on the fairways hit Saturday and his 140 yard average on approach shots was his best of the 15 yard tournament.
“Today I was moving better and I felt like I was on the first day, and as a result I was able to make the passes on the golf ball as I did on the first day,” said Woods. “Unfortunately I didn’t put any put in today, so I hope to be able to do more tomorrow.”
Woods needed these 36 holes over the weekend because if he chose not to play in 3M next week or in the FedEx St. Jude Invitational in two weeks, he would have played only 36 holes of competitive golf since February by going to the PGA championship in San Francisco in three weeks.
“Well, I think that going back into the flow and competing again and playing at this level, I haven’t done it in a while,” he said. “Playing at home and playing here is very different, and making sure that I stay sharp and don’t make stupid mistakes and unload the ball in wrong places or give me bad angles, this is one of the things about competitive golf playing is very different from playing. in home “.
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