The Players Championship leaderboard: Tiger Woods tumbles into last place

Throughout his career, Tiger Woods’ most reliable path to success was dominating the par-5s. He overwhelmed modern golf course setups, posting birdies and eagles at par-5s and zipping past his competitors. If he wants to win, or even contend these days, he has to get his red numbers at the par-5s (as much as 2-under par each round).

Due to wildness off the tee, Tiger repeatedly fails to capitalize on those scoring opportunities. He puts himself in a bad spot right away, and then scrambles just to get it back on line and save a par. That’s been a recurring problem since he won his last major.

Saturday’s round at TPC Sawgrass may turn out to be Tiger’s worst performance on those holes yet. Woods went out in 4-over 40 in his third round, dropping into a tie for last place with Padraig Harrington. The damage was done at the two par-5s -- he not only failed to make bride, but went the other way and double bogeyed both.

Before Saturday’s round, Tiger had played 245 par-5s at The Players. He carded just two doubles in that entire stretch before matching it on his third round front nine alone. The first came at Sawgrass’ 2nd hole, where Tiger yanked his drive right into the trees off the left of the tee. The ball landed just 105 yards from the tee -- about 70 yards short of the start of the fairway and even short of the ladles tee.

From there, he tried to punch out to a spot where you’d normally want your drive to land but his ball rolled through the fairway. A few more sloppy shots and he promptly had a double bogey on the card, erasing any slim chances he had at contending on the weekend.

The left miss kept continues to creep up for Tiger this week. It’s unrelenting and on Saturday, he floated them left of the fairway at 1, 2, 4, and 6. He finally put one in the fairway at the 7th, and he’s shown this week that he still has the short-to-mid-iron game that can compete with the best in the world. Finally standing in the fairway with a useful lie, he stuffed it to 13 feet at the 7th and made a birdie.

But any momentum from that birdie was gone by the turn after he posted another awful double bogey at the par-5 9th. That mess featured multiple chips from the thick stuff up near the green. Here’s Tiger’s card through nine holes:

And here’s the early third round leaderboard -- Tiger is looking up at everyone left in the field.

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