The Open 2015: Tiger Woods continues his fall from the greatest height

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United States’ Tiger Woods prepares to take a shot from the rough on the fifth hole during the first round of the British Open Golf Championship at the Old Course, St. Andrews, Scotland, Thursday, July 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

‘It’s tough to see your idol struggle,’ says Jason Day as a reacquaintance with St Andrews fails to rejuvenate Tiger’s failing game

The lamentable decline of Tiger Woods continues apace on the Old Course that was once his fiefdom. An abject opening round of 76, his worst competitive effort at St Andrews by a distance, was captured best by a mangled approach to the first that pitched straight into the Swilcan Burn. He held his head in anguish, as if he wanted the lush Fife fairway to swallow him whole. His friend and playing partner Jason Day, who eclipsed Woods’ score by 10 shots, spoke for many in saying: “I grew up watching him. He was my idol. And it’s tough to see your idol struggle.”

 

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Rarely in the annals of sport has a great athlete fallen so far, so fast. Woods’ hope was that he would be restored by a reacquaintance with St Andrews, scene of his two glorious Open triumphs in 2000 and 2005, but he was forced instead to reflect that he has played his last three rounds at major championships in 20 over par. The torture of Chambers Bay, where his game unravelled in his worst ever US Open display, spilled over into this latest grisly confirmation of his waning talents. Whether in his awful chunked chip at the 12th, or in his timid decision to take an iron off the tee as Day bombed the ball 80 yards past him, he seemed to be offering a cruel masquerade of the player he was.

While the attenuation of a champion’s powers can make for a melancholy spectacle, Woods himself appeared not to see it that way. Walking down the 14th fairway, he was laughing and joshing with Day with a devil-may-care demeanour that would have been unthinkable in his pomp. Then again, Tiger at full cry never had to suffer the indignity of bogeying four of his first seven holes while being lapped by the rest of the field. Paul Azinger, the former US Ryder Cup captain, did not dilute his words. “It’s hard to watch the greatest player of his generation be a middle-of-the-pack hack,” he said.

Woods is in denial about the extent of his unravelling. An indication of how much his standards have shifted is that he congratulated himself on making several “clutch” putts on the back nine, just when his round threatened to disintegrate altogether. The priority for Woods, in his 2015 incarnation, is simply to stay afloat and kindle some faint hope of making the cut. It was with much poignancy that he strode past Jordan Spieth, the 21-year-old wunderkind seeking a third major title in succession, on the vast double fairway linking the ninth and 10th. The impression of two phenomena heading in opposite directions was impossible to ignore.

Two groups ahead of Woods, Spieth set off on a tear that the faded idol could never hope to emulate. On an almost windless morning, St Andrews was in such receptive condition that one was reminded of Tom Watson’s remark upon a similarly benign first day here in 2010. “The old lady had no clothes on,” the veteran said. For Woods, however, she was wearing a heavy overcoat. Where Spieth was plundering the course with all the exuberance of youth en route to a five-under 67, Woods was toiling embarrassingly, as his error in finding the water at the first haunted him for the remainder of the round.

“It was discouraging,” he admitted. “I was angered a little bit. This leaderboard is so bunched that in order for me to be there by Sunday, I’ll need to have the conditions tough and then put together some really solid rounds, like John Daly did here in 1995. I’ve got to fight through it.”

The question is how long golf’s ultimate alpha male can tolerate mixing it with the also-rans. Woods’ oxygen is the scent of victory, not the anxiety about whether he needs to scramble the private jet for an early flight back to Florida. He can talk about the improvement in his release patterns all he likes, but the only pattern repeating at present is that of his own haplessness. For such a technophile as Woods, who has employed biomechanics expert Chris Como to dissect every facet of his swing, it was extraordinary how he managed yesterday to botch even the most basic decisions.

What was he envisaging at the second, for example, where he teed off with a long iron on a 459-yard par-four? Sure enough, he was short with his second shot, utterly misjudged the line of his long putt through three different swails, and finally horseshoed out with his 10-footer for par. As an incredulous Azinger put it: “Somebody needs to remind him how to think.”

Day, however, identified a few fragile grounds for optimism. Usually, Woods’ rivals are so terrified of offending him that they clam up at any invitation to comment about him publicly, but the Australian, among the 14-time major winner’s closest confidants on tour, was more candid. “He’s my mate and I grew up watching him,” he said. “He is why I chased the dream of becoming a professional. I saw him struggle once before, and he got back to No 1, so I know that he can get out of this.”

 

• The Open 2015: leaderboard

And yet even Day would concede that Woods’ air of fatalism on the course – grinning and joking when one would have expected him to be smouldering – was uncharacteristic. “In the past, Tiger had that killer instinct,” he said. “He used to get p—– off at himself, and that got him back to where he needed to be mentally. This time, he had to put his mind somewhere else, and that’s how he dealt with it. He wasn’t hitting it close enough, and he just tried to press from there. It’s difficult to do. It all depends how much he wants it.”

The issue of desire was one best posed to the man himself. Woods, for his part, was unambiguous. “Motivation is never a problem with me,” he said, stony-faced. Much more of this humiliation, though, and even his notorious stubbornness might start to falter.