Tiger Woods is in fine shape, but he wasted some chances to go low at the Open

Tiger Woods began the Open Championship with a round we’ve become quite familiar with this year. It started fast, with flashes of some vintage ballstriking and consistent birdie chances, and then lost juice as the hours wore on and sloppy mistakes crept it. Tiger had an extremely late tee time for a major championship, going out at 3:21 p.m. local time and playing deep into the evening past 8 p.m. It’s almost like he could have used an energy beverage or two on the inward nine.

The day started on an alarming note, with Woods showing up at Carnoustie with his neck covered in KT tape. His “camp” quickly clarified that it was no big deal, he simply had a stiff neck after sleeping on it poorly overnight. We’ve heard that before from his camp only to have an injury turn out much more severe than publicly disclosed, but the neck did not seem to bother him too much over the course of the afternoon. He did keep the tape on for the full round and was stretching it in what looked an uncomfortable way at the very end in the 18th fairway.

All season, we’ve hedge and wondered each week about Tiger’s real chance to win. He gave us a show early during the Florida swing in March that made it seem like he could contend every week. But this week felt different and real. It feels like a much more serious threat and it’s not just for recency and delusion. We’ve seen the British Open bring in veteran, experienced, and older players to the top of the leaderboard many times over the last decade. Tiger admitted it’s the one major he’d be most likely to win here in the late stage of his career. He’s got the brilliant mind to navigate a links and now he finally seemed healthy and competitive enough to actually execute the shots dreamt up in that mind. And we also have those extreme, baked-out conditions that he’s won on before in 2006.

Tiger’s strategy for the day was the hang back and keep driver in the bag on the baked-out links. It started well enough on the front nine, where he repeatedly hit it pin high to set up birdie tries, including at the very first hole and at the fourth.

Laying back on these concrete fairways is relative, of course, with mid-irons running out to 300 yards and beyond at Carnoustie. But it’s a different strategy than what Rory McIlroy, for example, employed a few hours ahead of Tiger. Rory ripped drivers all day and got away with it, missing on the correct side and taking advantage of a burnt out, thinner rough to post a 2-under 69.

Tiger’s plan worked well enough, but mistakes on the inward nine left him no margin for error. Here’s an example of how much some of his safer plays left him lesser margins for error, via Golf Channel’s Live From postgame show. If you’re playing the course from this far back, you better hit your spots off the tee.

Tiger got home and made par there but the point is his margin is smaller.

If you’re going to play it short and safe, you better not screw it up and miss your line or roll into a pot bunker. Those are the only real hazards on the course, often penalizing you a full shot after you have to just hit out sideways. At his peak, Tiger could get around these courses and hit his exact spot every time. It’s what made 2000 at St. Andrews, when he landed in just one pot bunker, arguably his greatest performance. He can’t do it that well anymore, no one can. But he’s still missing his spot or misjudging the roll a little too often to move near the top of the leaderboard. There were at least three bad missies into pot bunkers on the back nine, which featured three bogeys and a number of scrambled par saves.

Woods had 8-irons in the the two par-5s and made birdie on neither. Add in a three-putt and the pot bunker patronage and you’re left feeling like the round could have been more. He said he played much better than his score indicated, and that it was probably the best round of the tougher afternoon wave.

The good news is Tiger probably caught the course at its toughest on Thursday. The very end of the day saw some higher scores and Woods could not figure out the greens as they slowed down significantly following a full day of play. And despite the bad taste in your mouth from the back nine, this was still an even-par 71. That’s not that bad! He’s in good shape to make the cut. Now comes an earlier tee time on Friday, hopefully a looser neck, and fewer mistakes for a run up the board.

Here’s the leaderboard as the first day winds down at Carnoustie: