Woods ranks playing four rounds at Augusta as one of his greatest achievements and confirmed he will be at St AndrewsThe look on Tiger Woods’s face as he walked off the 18th green told you all you need to know about what he’s been through in the last 14 months.Woods had just shot his second consecutive round of 78, which is the worst score he’s ever made in the 24 years he’s been playing here, and done it on a day that seemed tailor-made for going low. The round left him 13 over par for the tournament, and 22 shots off Scottie Scheffler’s lead, in 47th place. And despite it all, he was grinning like he’d just won the tournament....
Northern Irishman still attracts galleries at Augusta but has now adjusted his sights to a top-10 finish going into final day“I feel like I’m right there,” said Rory McIlroy on Friday night, as he weighed his chances after back‑to‑back rounds of 73 on Thursday and Friday. “You go out tomorrow and you play a decent front nine, and all of a sudden you’re right in the thick of things.” Seventeen hours later, he stepped out on to the 1st tee and, thwack, dumped his opening drive right into a fairway bunker, then, crack, whacked his second shot into the lip where it rebounded and fell back down by his feet. His third made it on to the green, where he...
Golf’s greatest showman shows he is ready to compete against all odds after a solid if mostly unspectacular start There were about 50,000 people at Augusta National for the start of the Masters: fans, media, members, stewards, caddies, cooks, camera crew and all the other support staff, and on Thursday morning almost every last one of them was asking the same sort of question. Plenty had come along to the 1st tee at 11am to find out the answer, too. The dogged ones had staked a front-row spot first thing that morning. Everyone else was craning their necks and popping up on their tiptoes, jockeying to try to find a line of sight that would allow them to catch a...
We don’t have a right to know what happened in that car crash last February. Sifting through the wreckage doesn’t helpPress conferences will not define the career of Tiger Woods save, perhaps, the reference point provided by “Hello world” on the eve of his professional debut in 1996. For so many years thereafter, appearances by Woods before the media felt like an ordeal. Great moments arrived inside ropes, not via soundbite.That tetchiness has long since evaporated. The later stages of his career have witnessed a more relatable and amenable side. Even if, it must be said, the 15-times major winner never has any apparent interest in being a journalist’s friend. Woods is just willing or able to play the game...
Carelessness on the closing greens on Saturday cost the Texan, but second place has returned him to the world’s top 15When Jordan Spieth completed his final round at Royal St George’s and turned to acknowledge the crowd, he kept his head down. Perhaps it was the evening sun cutting over the gallery that caused him to avert his eyes. Or perhaps it was something else. A sense of disappointment, maybe.The former boy wonder of golf had to watch Collin Morikawa assume that mantle, as the 24-year-old won the Open at the first time of asking. But Spieth, 27, is on the back of one of the biggest comeback seasons in golf, and it was only the consistency of the champion,...