‘Tiger-proof’ slow greens at Honda Classic baffle Woods

Tiger Woods, playing only his third worldwide event of the 2014 season on Thursday, struggled with his overall game but erratic work with his flatstick on sluggish putting surfaces contributed mightily to his mediocre 1-over 71 in the opening round of the Honda Classic.

The greens “are slower [than in the past] but they are really grainy, and I got fooled on the grain a few times today, how much it tugged it,” Woods told reporters after recording his fifth-straight round of par or worse in his two-plus trips as a professional to PGA National.

“We were talking about it out there today in our group, how different this golf course is this year compared to last year,” said Woods, tied for 81st and with work to do to make the cut heading into Friday’s second round. “They were as slippery as can be last year and now they are sticky and slower.”

That may be, and it’s hardly the first time Woods has complained about slow greens, but his playing partners, Zach Johnson (67) and Keegan Bradley (69), managed to go below par on a day when 56 guys in the star-studded field registered red numbers. And that’s despite ZJ’s quadruple-bogey-8 on No. 11 (his second hole of the day) and a double and two bogeys for Bradley.

“It was easy to put [the snowman] right behind me because, fortunately, it was the second hole [and] I felt good about just where my game was,” Johnson said after his bounce-back round. “It means that I certainly was able to get through a difficulty, I was able to right the ship ... but the biggest thing is that it hopefully [frees] my mind for the rest of the week.”

With that missed cut at Torrey Pines and a T41 in Dubai in his only two other competitive events of the year, and playing competitively for the first time in more than three weeks, it remains to be seen if Woods can put his three-birdie, two-bogey, one-double round in his rearview mirror and come to some kind of understanding with greens not to his liking.

Starting on No. 10, Woods had an uneventful first nine, with a 10-foot birdie putt on 18 getting him to 1-under and boding well for the incoming holes, though he rued his missed opportunities that resulted in hitting just eight of 14 fairways and 12 of 18 greens in regulation.

“I didn’t make much. The first four holes out of the gate, I had four good looks, didn’t make any of ‘em,” said Woods. “It certainly wasn’t together today. I didn’t get into a roll early when ... I had four good looks early and they were easy putts too and i just didn’t have the speed right.”

After the turn, things went south in a hurry when Woods yanked his tee shot on No. 2 into heavy rough and then duffed his next shot, which traveled maybe 25 yards.

A double-bogey ensued, after he found a bunker with his next shot and missed a 12-footer for bogey.

Two bogeys and two birdies later -- including a missed three-and-a-half putt for par on the par-3 fifth as well as a moderately long putt birdie putt he made on No. 9 -- and Tiger was in the clubhouse, eight shots behind 18-hole leader Rory McIlroy, who returned with a bang to the scene of the nadir of his career.

“We don’t often talk about Tiger rallying to shoot 1-over,” Dottie Pepper observed on ESPN.com.

Pepper also noted that Woods was not wrong in recognizing that the greens played differently than they did in 2012 or 2013, when Tiger posted a T2 and T37, respectively. The course superintendent had “taken virtually all of the grain out,” she said, “so these are not putting surfaces that Tiger remembers from his two previous rounds he’s played here.”

Woods, who needed 30 putts to get around, confirmed he “needed to do a better job” figuring out the greens, but if history is a guide it may be difficult for him to come to terms with making putts on turf that lacks pace. He was vociferous back in July about the torpid state of the greens during the British Open and continued his carping ahead of the PGA Championship.

Tiger was able to cobble together a T6 at Muirfield but managed only a T40 at Oak Hill.

For those keeping score at home, Pepper pointed out that deadened greens have been Tiger’s achilles heel since he was a kid. She suggested, in fact, that Woods father, Earl, was bemused by the the machinations Augusta National went through to lengthen its iconic track to level the playing field after his son won the Masters by 12 shots in 1997.

“When [Tiger] was a youngster ... his dad had said,” Pepper contended. ”‘If you want to Tiger-proof a golf course, just slow down the greens.’

“It’s not about making it longer, narrower, anything else,” Pepper said. “Just slow down the greens. He’s not comfortable when they get a little pokey.”