4:27PM
CBSSports.com: Woods shoots 71, odds triple in rough first day at Open
4:27 PM
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com
TURNBERRY, Scotland -- The money couldn't be turned over fast enough. The pounds, each of them worth $1.77, were being wagered on Tiger Woods with such eagerness that Britain's betting paper, the Racing Post, headlined it as "a feeding frenzy."
Tiger was a virtual 2-1 favorite when he stepped to the first tee Thursday to hit first shot of the 138th British Open, and nobody else, not Sergio Garcia, not Steve Stricker, not two-time defending champion Padraig Harrington, was better than 20-1.
The odds changed dramatically by the time Tiger made it to the rolling 18th green of Turnberry's enticing links. Woods not only wasn't leading the tournament, he wasn't even leading the other two players in his threesome, one of them 17-year-old Japanese prodigy Ryo Ishikawa, the other Englishman Lee Westwood.
The odds on that happening were rather large. Mr. Woods, who came in with a 1-over-par 71, which put him down below the top 60, was a 1-2 favorite to beat Ishikawa and Westwood.
Which he didn't do, both of them coming in with 2-under 68s. And which made El Tigre perhaps the most unhappy laddie on the west coast of Scotland, if not the entire country.
Tiger was his usual repetitious and non-committal self when asked exactly that happened on a day when the wind didn't blow, the rain never fell and the temperature at the real Turnberry -- this one -- might have been confused with that of the reasonable facsimile, Turnberry in Florida.
You not only could see the sun, you could see Ailsa Craig, that mammoth rock off 10 miles into the Firth of Clyde, and not even think about the local axiom: "If ye can't see Ailsa Craig, it's raining; if ye can see Ailsa Craig, it's going to rain."
It figuratively rained on Tiger's out-of-step parade. He had four bogeys, of which one actually was quite impressive.
Woods hit his approach on the 455-yard par-4 16th, named "Wee Burn," into the burn, or stream, which doesn't seem so "wee." After a penalty drop, he chipped close and one-putted. Otherwise he would have had a double bogey.
Tiger's post-round analysis consisted of a not-surprising litany, words we have heard more than once at majors since Woods returned from the left knee ACL surgery that kept him out from June 2008 to February 2009.
"Well," he said, "I certainly made a few mistakes out there. Realistically, I probably should have shot about 1 or 2 under par. But I made a few mistakes, and consequently I'm at 1 over."
Then he pointed out he would be going to the driving range to correct those mistakes.
There's a pattern here, and one Tiger needs to break. He won the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in March two weeks before the Masters and finished sixth at Augusta. He won the Memorial two weeks before the U.S. Open and finished sixth at Bethpage. Two weeks before this Open Championship, he won the AT&T in Washington.
"On the range," Woods said of his warmup, "my misses were to the right. And I tried not to miss it to the right on 3. I didn't do that. Consequently I hit it left."
After the shot, he took a swipe at the teeing ground and mumbled something under his breath. By round's end, he had tossed away his clubs a few times. He expected more of himself. So did everyone, especially the guys making the odds.
"The misses I had were the same shots I was hitting on the range," Woods said. "So I need to go to work on that and get it squared away."
With 54 holes remaining, Woods isn't exactly finished, even if the bookmakers revised the numbers upward, placing him at 6-1. You only wish waiters over here could serve half as quickly as the odds are posted.
Before 2005, Tiger had not finished first in a major when he didn't shoot par or better the first round, but that stat has become irrelevant, sort of like those six-foot deep bunkers at Turnberry without any breeze to knock down shots.
Woods now has three major titles when he began over par, the '05 Masters and the last two of his total 14, the '07 PGA and the '08 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, the one he took on a leg and half and a lot of courage.
The other day, after a practice round, Tiger said Turnberry is a course where "you can't fake it." There was no faking the first round of the 2009 Open, just enough bad shots to change the odds -- if not Tiger's continued place as the favorite.
- - - - - -
http://www.cbssports.com/golf/story/11960022
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com
TURNBERRY, Scotland -- The money couldn't be turned over fast enough. The pounds, each of them worth $1.77, were being wagered on Tiger Woods with such eagerness that Britain's betting paper, the Racing Post, headlined it as "a feeding frenzy."
Tiger was a virtual 2-1 favorite when he stepped to the first tee Thursday to hit first shot of the 138th British Open, and nobody else, not Sergio Garcia, not Steve Stricker, not two-time defending champion Padraig Harrington, was better than 20-1.
The odds changed dramatically by the time Tiger made it to the rolling 18th green of Turnberry's enticing links. Woods not only wasn't leading the tournament, he wasn't even leading the other two players in his threesome, one of them 17-year-old Japanese prodigy Ryo Ishikawa, the other Englishman Lee Westwood.
The odds on that happening were rather large. Mr. Woods, who came in with a 1-over-par 71, which put him down below the top 60, was a 1-2 favorite to beat Ishikawa and Westwood.
Which he didn't do, both of them coming in with 2-under 68s. And which made El Tigre perhaps the most unhappy laddie on the west coast of Scotland, if not the entire country.
Tiger was his usual repetitious and non-committal self when asked exactly that happened on a day when the wind didn't blow, the rain never fell and the temperature at the real Turnberry -- this one -- might have been confused with that of the reasonable facsimile, Turnberry in Florida.
You not only could see the sun, you could see Ailsa Craig, that mammoth rock off 10 miles into the Firth of Clyde, and not even think about the local axiom: "If ye can't see Ailsa Craig, it's raining; if ye can see Ailsa Craig, it's going to rain."
It figuratively rained on Tiger's out-of-step parade. He had four bogeys, of which one actually was quite impressive.
Woods hit his approach on the 455-yard par-4 16th, named "Wee Burn," into the burn, or stream, which doesn't seem so "wee." After a penalty drop, he chipped close and one-putted. Otherwise he would have had a double bogey.
Tiger's post-round analysis consisted of a not-surprising litany, words we have heard more than once at majors since Woods returned from the left knee ACL surgery that kept him out from June 2008 to February 2009.
"Well," he said, "I certainly made a few mistakes out there. Realistically, I probably should have shot about 1 or 2 under par. But I made a few mistakes, and consequently I'm at 1 over."
Then he pointed out he would be going to the driving range to correct those mistakes.
There's a pattern here, and one Tiger needs to break. He won the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in March two weeks before the Masters and finished sixth at Augusta. He won the Memorial two weeks before the U.S. Open and finished sixth at Bethpage. Two weeks before this Open Championship, he won the AT&T in Washington.
"On the range," Woods said of his warmup, "my misses were to the right. And I tried not to miss it to the right on 3. I didn't do that. Consequently I hit it left."
After the shot, he took a swipe at the teeing ground and mumbled something under his breath. By round's end, he had tossed away his clubs a few times. He expected more of himself. So did everyone, especially the guys making the odds.
"The misses I had were the same shots I was hitting on the range," Woods said. "So I need to go to work on that and get it squared away."
With 54 holes remaining, Woods isn't exactly finished, even if the bookmakers revised the numbers upward, placing him at 6-1. You only wish waiters over here could serve half as quickly as the odds are posted.
Before 2005, Tiger had not finished first in a major when he didn't shoot par or better the first round, but that stat has become irrelevant, sort of like those six-foot deep bunkers at Turnberry without any breeze to knock down shots.
Woods now has three major titles when he began over par, the '05 Masters and the last two of his total 14, the '07 PGA and the '08 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, the one he took on a leg and half and a lot of courage.
The other day, after a practice round, Tiger said Turnberry is a course where "you can't fake it." There was no faking the first round of the 2009 Open, just enough bad shots to change the odds -- if not Tiger's continued place as the favorite.
- - - - - -
http://www.cbssports.com/golf/story/11960022
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.
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