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Sour taste Woods caps worst major since '97 PGA
Updated: Sunday July 22, 2001 6:05 PM
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England (AP) -- Tiger Woods finally found his swing. He also found waist-high weeds, pot bunkers and a bunch of other trouble at Royal Lytham & St. Annes that led to his worst performance at a major in nearly four years. Just five strokes behind when the final round of the British Open began Sunday, Woods flirted with a comeback only to see it fall apart with a triple bogey. He finished with an even-par 71, and his final score of 283 was two strokes higher than when he played Royal Lytham in 1996 as a 20-year-old amateur. "The game is very fickle," Woods said. One thing was clear on a sunny day on the Lancashire coast -- the game isn't treating Woods as kindly as it did when he romped into the history books by winning four straight major championships. "I do appreciate what I did," he said. "I probably understand a lot more than you how tough it is because I'm out there playing and trying to deal with the emotions and the situations down the stretch of a major championship." The only situation he has faced down the stretch in the last two majors is getting out of the way. He tied for 12th in the U.S. Open, his first time out of the top 10 in a major championship since the '99 Masters.
He wound up nine strokes behind at Royal Lytham and in a tie for 25th, his lowest position in a major since he tied for 29th in the '97 PGA Championship at Winged Foot. "I'm not thrilled that I wasn't able to contend down the stretch," Woods said. "But I had my chances out there." From his opening round of 71 in which Woods hit into five more bunkers than he did all of last year in winning by eight shots at St. Andrews, he never looked comfortable off the tee, often holding his arm out to the side to alert the gallery. That wasn't the problem Sunday. He missed a 4-foot par putt on the opening hole but looked as though he might swing the gallery in his favor when he made three straight birdies to get within three of the lead. He had only a 9-iron for his second shot on the 557-yard seventh hole, but came up short and faced an 18-foot birdie putt. The stroke was pure, but the ball hung over the right edge of the cup as it trickled by, and Woods cursed at himself. "If I had birdied [No.] 7 with a 9-iron in my hand, and if I had gotten three or four more coming in, you never know," he said. No one will. After missing an 8-foot birdie putt on No. 11, it all came undone. His approach into the 198-yard 12th hole went long and right into the weeds, so deep that Woods was not sure whether his chip would come out hot or get stuck in the dense rough. BBC announcer Peter Allis summed it up well as Woods' shot sailed over the green. "As they say in America, he touched them all." The ball bounded some 40 yards down the fairway, and Woods' pitch back toward the green caught a slope and rolled into a pot bunker. He blasted out to 8 feet and two-putt for triple bogey, his first in a major since he dumped one on Rae's Creek on No. 12 in the opening round of last year's Masters. "I'm not overly disappointed with today or this week because I tried as hard as I could," Woods said. It was his fourth straight tournament in which he finished out of the top 10, the first time he has had a stretch like that since the end of the 1997 season. If anything is wrong, Woods doesn't appear concerned.
"I just need to get my mechanics a little bit more sound," he
said. "You're not going to play well every week. Everyone who
plays this game understands that."
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