Tiger Woods is playing about as well as we could have expected, dropping two shots in his first five holes to fall four shots off the lead. There have been no signs that Tiger is in pain, or struggling with his back, but his swing and his game are just not sharp. It was this way before Sunday’s back injury, and it was only going to get worse with no practice all week.
Tiger Woods struggles early at Valhalla, tumbles down PGA Championship leaderboard
The 2000 PGA winner at Valhalla is playing under far different circumstances this year, and he’s grinding at the start of his first round.
Tiger’s first hole started well enough. He went off No. 10, a par-5 that will play as a three-shot hole for pretty much everyone in the field. Tiger put his drive in the middle of the fairway, laid up, and stuck his third shot in the center for a good birdie chance. The putt for his first red number, however, came up short and it didn’t take Tiger too long to show his frustration with getting a par.
Couldn't walk a few days ago, now pissed he got a par on 1st hole. pic.twitter.com/rmQk52hc1N
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) August 7, 2014 While he may have been disappointed with that birdie putt, overall, it was a good hole with no leaky shots. Here’s a GIF sequence from Luke Kerr-Dineen with all of Tiger’s strokes for his opening par.
The par-3s last week at Firestone featured some of Tiger’s uglier shots of the week. He left his 5-iron tee shot a good 40 yards short on a par-3 7th on Thursday, and then some 60 yards short on the par-3 5th on Sunday before he bowed out.
Some of that par-3 trouble has carried over to Thursday at the PGA. Woods has dropped both his shots on the two par-3s on Valhalla’s back nine. His tee shot at the 11th sailed right of the green and settled in a difficult sidehill lie. He did about as well as he could just to get it on the green in the area of the pin, but couldn’t get up-and-down to save par.On the 12th hole, a gettable par-4, Woods hit one fat, his ball dying 30 yards short of the green. The divot he sent flying into the air made it apparent right away that he had chunked it, and that resulted in another disappointing par
Two holes later, on his second par-3, Woods would miss the green badly yet again. The shot at No. 11 sailed right, but this one went deep into the gallery up on the left side of the green. Again, he couldn’t get up-and-down to save par and dropped back to 2-over.
Here’s the early leaderboard for the morning draw at Valhalla:
| Place | Player | Score | Thru |
| 1 | Brendon Todd | -3 | 7 |
| T2 | Joost Luiten | -2 | 9 |
| T2 | Kevin Chappell | -2 | 6 |
| T2 | Jason Day | -2 | 6 |
| T2 | Ian Poulter | -2 | 6 |
| T2 | Graeme McDowell | -2 | 4 |
| T2 | Kevin Stadler | -2 | 4 |
| T8 | Robert Karlsson | -1 | 9 |
| T8 | Hideki Matsuyama | -1 | 8 |
| T8 | George Coetzee | -1 | 8 |
| T8 | Billy Horschel | -1 | 8 |
| T8 | Victor Dubuisson | -1 | 7 |
| T8 | Ernie Els | -1 | 7 |
| T8 | Adam Scott | -1 | 6 |
| T8 | Lee Westwood | -1 | 6 |
| T8 | Matt Every | -1 | 6 |
| T8 | Jimmy Walker | -1 | 6 |
| T8 | Thongchai Jaidee | -1 | 4 |
| T8 | K.J. Choi | -1 | 4 |
| T8 | Brooks Koepka | -1 | 4 |
| T8 | Hyung-Sung Kim | -1 | 4 |
| T8 | Stephen Gallacher | -1 | 3 |
| T8 | Bernd Wiesberger | -1 | 3 |
| T8 | Kevin Streelman | -1 | 3 |
| T8 | Edoardo Molinari | -1 | 3 |
| T8 | Marc Warren | -1 | 2 |
| T8 | Russell Henley | -1 | 2 |
| T8 | Brendan Steele | -1 | 2 |
| T8 | Mikko Ilonen | -1 | 1 |
| T30 | Patrick Reed | E | 8 |
| T30 | Colin Montgomerie | E | 8 |
| T30 | Freddie Jacobson | E | 6 |
| T30 | Padraig Harrington | E | 5 |
| T30 | Phil Mickelson | E | 5 |
| T30 | Brian Harman | E | 4 |
| T30 | Harris English | E | 4 |
| T30 | Charl Schwartzel | E | 4 |
| T30 | Jim Furyk | E | 4 |
| T30 | Stewart Cink | E | 4 |
| T30 | John Huh | E | 3 |
| T30 | Louis Oosthuizen | E | 3 |
| T30 | Rafael Cabrera Bello | E | 3 |
| T30 | Ryan Helminen | E | 3 |
| T30 | David McNabb | E | 2 |
| T30 | Pat Perez | E | 1 |
| T30 | George McNeill | E | 1 |
| T47 | Russell Knox | 1 | 9 |
| T47 | Koumei Oda | 1 | 9 |
| T47 | Michael Block | 1 | 8 |
| T47 | Shaun Micheel | 1 | 8 |
| T47 | Brian Stuard | 1 | 7 |
| T47 | Rickie Fowler | 1 | 7 |
| T47 | Brendon de Jonge | 1 | 6 |
| T47 | Jordan Spieth | 1 | 6 |
| T47 | Ross Fisher | 1 | 6 |
| T47 | Rich Beem | 1 | 6 |
| T47 | Thomas Bjorn | 1 | 4 |
| T47 | Jamie Donaldson | 1 | 4 |
| T47 | Justin Rose | 1 | 3 |
| T47 | Marc Leishman | 1 | 3 |
| T47 | Rob Corcoran | 1 | 1 |
| T47 | Jerry Smith | 1 | 1 |
| T63 | Roberto Castro | 2 | 9 |
| T63 | Charles Howell III | 2 | 9 |
| T63 | Nick Watney | 2 | 6 |
| T63 | Mark Brooks | 2 | 6 |
| T63 | Tiger Woods | 2 | 5 |
| T63 | Brandt Snedeker | 2 | 4 |
| T63 | Miguel Jimenez | 2 | 4 |
| T70 | Jamie Broce | 3 | 8 |
| T70 | Jason Kokrak | 3 | 3 |
| T70 | Boo Weekley | 3 | 3 |
| T73 | Pablo Larrazabal | 5 | 7 |
| T73 | John Daly | 5 | 6 |
| T75 | Brian Norman | 6 | 9 |
| T75 | Angel Cabrera | 6 | 8 |
| T77 | Frank Esposito, Jr. | 7 | 9 |
| T77 | Aaron Krueger | 7 | 9 |
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