The chances of Tiger Woods chasing down Rory McIlroy, who led him by seven shots at the start of the final round of the Honda Classic, were already slim and they’re now completely gone after a horrible slice into the water at No. 3.
Tiger Woods slices, rinses, and implodes early at Honda Classic
The No. 1 player in the world will not be pulling some of the Sunday dramatics he put on chasing Rory McIlroy at PGA National two years ago.
Sam Greenwood
UPDATE: Tiger did not make it through the round, and after posting an ugly 40 on the front nine, he withdrew from the tournament on the 13th hole, citing a bad back. He’s had back issues pop up throughout the last 12 months, but with the Masters rapidly approaching, it’s a less than ideal time for the No. 1 player in the world to be dealing yet again with another injury.
After making a sloppy bogey at the second, Woods pulled driver at the par-5 third hole and hit his tee shot totally off the course. The ball sliced way right and into a hazard that’s not really designed to be a part of the hole. A phrase Tiger often uses to describe what happened on a bad shot is that he “got stuck” and that’s what we had here with the big stick at the third. The head of the driver was trailing the rest of the his motion and the club, and the ball bombed 20 yards into the middle of a pond that was already some 20 yards off the fairway.
I mean, that pond is 20 yards right of the fairway, and he splashed 15-20 yards into it. Shades of his tee shot Friday on 11.
— GC Tiger Tracker (@GCTigerTracker) March 2, 2014 Here’s the trace of the shot, and you’ll notice Woods was already asking for a new ball from caddy Joe LaCava with his first shot still in the air (via Alex Myers of GolfDigest):
"He was asking for another ball before it landed." Tiger Woods hits a hacker's banana ball. Here's visual proof... http://t.co/yZB9lHFGn0
— Alex Myers (@AlexMyers3) March 2, 2014 We also went ahead and touched up the tracer image for our best guess on the path it took plunging into the drink:
Or given that he’s in the process of definitely checking out again, probably:
It's not exactly the ideal way to start a gettable par-5, which was a must-make birdie if he had any shot of catching Rory.
It didn’t get any better after the wild tee ball, either, as Woods continued to make a mess. Tiger completely airmailed his fourth shot over the green into a TV tower. After taking relief from the structure, Woods was chipping for par and ran it almost seven feet past the cup. To top off the early disaster, Woods then blasted his bogey putt by the right edge for the double that ended his longshot chance.
The misadventures at the third even broke PGATour.com’s ShotTracker, which had no idea how to map out the mess:
To make matters worse, Tiger decided to drop another shot and bogey the fourth hole. There will be no Sunday round of 62, which he fired here two years ago to put the pressure on McIlroy. The way things are going right now, he’s closer to repeating that stunning implosion we saw at Torrey Pines last month, when he shot a 79.
Woods is now 1-under for the week, 4-over through four holes today, and 11 shots back of the lead. Thanks for coming.
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