2010 U.S. Open: How Tiger Woods Got His Groove Back

SB Nation’s golf expert, Ryan Ballengee, has been covering the U.S. Open live from Pebble Beach. He sat in as Tiger spoke to the media about his exceptional Round 3 performance.

The final stretch of holes, though, were what made Woods a contender for his fourth Open title. After a birdie on the short downhill sixteenth, Woods hit his tee shot on the iconic and devilish seventeenth to about fourteen feet above the hole.

Woods said of the putt that he was simply trying to leave himself without a difficult second putt.

“I told myself to not mess up the momentum, the great round that I had going,” Woods said.

He didn’t. He curled in a putt with six feet of break to get back to even par.Woods also felt that he psyched himself out of an eagle, which could have given him a 6-under round -- the best of this year’s tournament.

After a tee shot that left him near a tree that could scuttle those efforts, Woods said he arrived at his ball happy.

“I thought I had a shot at it, and I was hoping Stevie would give me a good number. When he said 260, he did.”

Woods went for it, curling his ball onto the green within twenty feet of the hole. Tiger said he psyched himself out of making the eagle that would have been deafening to the competition behind him. Nonetheless, Woods is clearly happy that his game is back.

“In all of the Opens that I’ve won, I’ve had a stretch of nine holes - not just front or back nine, but nine holes - where I made my move,” Woods said.

Here’s Ballengee’s analysis of Tiger’s third-round comeback:

Check back with this StoryStream on Sunday as Round 4 progresses, and for our expert’s take, be sure to read Ryan Ballengee at Waggle Room.