Tiger Woods’ game goes sideways at 2013 Memorial

Tiger Woods, after carding one of the worst scores of his PGA Tour career in Saturday’s third round of the Memorial, can at least be thankful that former coach Butch Harmon tapped out his final tweet the day before.

Harmon, who’s on Woods’ colleague Nick Watney’s payroll these days, holstered his Twitter finger after posting an ill-advised comment following his pupil’s 82-77 performance.

(golf clap/Stephanie Wei for the since-removed tweet)

Were Harmon’s Twitter page still extant (Harmon tweeted his curtain call shortly after his Watney comment and disappeared from the Twitter-sphere), one can only imagine what he would have to say about Woods’ absolutely horrid turn at Jack’s place on Saturday.

As it was, Woods had little to offer, other than telling reporters he had “a rough day.

“It was tough from beginning to end,” added Woods, who shocked and awed a golfing public ready to see the four-time 2013 winner add a sixth to his five career on the course he has bent to his will over the years.

Instead, Tiger, who was fortunate to make the cut on Friday, looked nothing like a guy ready to hoist his 15th major championship trophy in two weeks at the U.S. Open.

Entering the weekend at 1-over, Woods went on to post the worst-ever nine-hole score (8-over 44) of his career. Now, instead of starting Sunday’s finale with the intent of defending his 2012 Memorial title, Woods can only hope to cadge something positive in his final competitive round before the Open at Merion Golf Club.

“It was a tough day,” Woods, who was 1-under on his incoming nine holes (he began his magical mystery ride on No. 10 and parred the first two holes), told reporters, as he noted on his webpage. “I tried to fight back on the back nine, but just didn’t quite materialize.”

That’s for sure, as his woes began with a double-bogey on the par-3 12th. A horrible downhill lie in the front bunker left him no choice but to come out sideways. A three-putt from 59 feet followed.

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He carded another double on the par-5 15th, but things went from awful to wretched on the par-4 18th, when two failed flop shots trickled back down the slope and Woods three-putted from four feet.

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So how did Saturday’s 79 stack up with Woods’ other bad rounds? It matches the 79 he made in the second round of the 2010 Quail Hollow Championship and was two strokes better than his highest score -- an 81 in terrible conditions in the third round of the 2002 Open Championship at Scotland’s Muirfield Golf Club.

His outgoing-nine 44 was the absolute nadir of Woods’ career.

* as an amateur

(via PGATour.com)

“The conditions were tough, when I missed it cost me,” Woods concluded after his historically miserable day. “I caught the wrong gusts at the wrong time, made a couple bad swings and all in all it just went the wrong way.”