Tiger Woods can’t make a move on moving day at the British Open

For the second day in a row, a few catastrophic holes derailed a respectable round for Tiger Woods. On Friday, he began with a double bogey and almost found himself heading home early after a triple bogey on 17. His Saturday round featured another double and triple combo. The big numbers led to a 1-over 73 for Tiger and leaves us with more questions about the state of his game as we head to the final round.

Tiger’s round got off to a great start with two birdies on his first two holes en route to an opening nine 35 (he played the back nine first). After the turn, he exorcised some demons with a birdie at No. 1. The first hole had been a disaster for Tiger through the first two rounds, but thanks to a split tee start, maybe he just needed to play the hole as his 10th of the day.

Any momentum he had, however, was killed on the very next hole with double bogey. He followed with four straight pars and seemed more concerned with joking around with Jordan Spieth than playing golf. So things then got worse.

On No. 7, Tiger tried to remain conservative with an iron off the tee. Unfortunately for him, his ball landed directly in one of those gorse bushes that always dot the terrain of a British Open. After 5 minutes of searching, Tiger, his caddie Joe LaCava, and a few rules officials weren’t able to locate his ball.

Despite that army of people looking for his ball, he’d have to make the long walk back to the tee. He refused a golf cart ride, likely taking the time to walk and stew in solitude. The result was his second triple bogey of the tournament.

When it was all over, Tiger stood at 3-over and a whopping 19 shots behind Rory McIlroy.

All things considered, this is what we should have expected from Woods. For a guy that hasn’t played very much this year, seeing some good mixed with some bad is understandable. Regardless of how he finishes this Open, he will have played four competitive rounds for the first time since early March. That may sound like a ridiculous statement given that we’re talking about the greatest player of his generation any maybe all time, but that’s how the (outside) expectations have shifted and where we’re at right now.