Tiger Woods crushes drive, actually finds a fairway at Firestone

Tiger Woods and his velvety red Nike Covert driver have not been on particularly friendly terms of late, but the defending champion of this week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational absolutely crushed a 363-yarder off the eighth tee that somehow landed in the short stuff.

Woods, who on Friday could muster little of the magic that had him flirting with a 59 in the second round a year ago on the Firestone course he has conquered eight times, struggled with the big club all day. After finding just four of 14 fairways and 11 of 18 greens, Tiger ended his day with a 1-over 71 to put him at 1-under for the week in the limited-field, no-cut prelude to next week’s PGA Championship.

It appeared as if it might just be Tiger’s day, after he got off to a strong start with a birdie on No. 10, his first hole of the day. Unfortunately, that was the sole highlight from his outgoing nine as he immediately bogeyed No. 11 and added another on the par-4 13th to make the turn at 1-over 36.

Woods followed another bogey on the par-5 second with two birdies in the next three holes, but he was as errant with his flat stick (29 putts) as he was with his driver, a missed five-foot par putt on 11 illustrating how things went on Friday.

“I didn’t do anything well,” Woods, who needs strong finishes at Firestone and Valhalla to have a chance to qualify for the post-season and make the Ryder Cup team, told reporters after a grind of all grinds.

It was such a grind that, even after clobbering that drive on No. 8, Woods was only able to salvage par.

For those keeping score at home, Golf Channel’s Tiger Tracker pretty much summed up the day for Woods, who will enter the weekend seven shots back of the early leader in the clubhouse, Justin Rose.