Tiger Woods was bullish about his game coming into St Andrews because he had to be; his self-confidence would appear to be all he has left.
Yesterday’s 76, while not as outright humiliating as those rounds earlier in the season or at the Memorial, has to be hugely debilitating, frustrating and even depressing to him, although he somehow maintained the impression it was not.
St Andrews was the last of HIS courses. He’d lost his aura of invincibility at other favoured tracks Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines, Firestone, Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill and Jack Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village.
But not on the Old Course. Not the place he’d play before any other in the world, even backwards, he said to us with rare enthusiasm on Tuesday.
To have the Old Lady, in her most accommodating mood yesterday, treat him like she did has to be a real stab to the heart.
She didn’t even let him get started on their date. After a warm acclaim on the first tee, he chunked his opening tee shot, then put his second in the Swilcan Burn. That brought an immediate bogey, and Tiger didn’t hit a green in regulation for the first three holes and only ten all the way through; most club players around St Andrews would be shamefaced at that.
Just one group ahead, Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson were melting the Old Lady’s heart and picking up birdies in armfuls.
The pre-championship theory, plausible it seemed, was that even the lost Tiger we’ve seen so often this season would be freed of the constricts that avail him everywhere else on this hallowed ground for him.
Instead he was left hoping that the weather will be foul today and he’ll be able to fight and grind his way back into the championship that way. Given his erratic performances even at his peak when the seawinds blew over the links, that’s a mighty forlorn hope.
“I know today was very benign, guys are going to go low,” he said. “Conditions will be tough tomorrow and I can put together a good round and we’ll move up the board progressively.
“I’m obviously going to have to put together some solid rounds, something like JD (John Daly) did in 1995. If you shoot good, solid rounds then you can move up the board.”
Don’t you feel discouraged, de-motivated when it all goes wrong so quickly? he was asked.
“Motivation is never a problem with me,” he said, with the old steely stare. “But discouraging, yeah. I was angered a bit.
“I hit it good coming home, and I made some clutch putts. I just need to put those in position to be for birdies instead of pars.”
The deep hole Tiger is in was illustrated in how he played the easier front nine in a near-disastrous 40, and the back nine in a reasonable level par 36.
Even there, however, some of his play looked inept, amazing for someone who has been the technical master of his craft. One chunked pitch at 15 made one almost avert one’s eyes. Some in the crowd ebbed away long before, as if not wishing to see any more of this.
Tiger’s missing the cut is not unknown at the Open his first in a major came at Turnberry in 2009, before it all went pear-shaped in his private life. But this one would leave the greatest player we’ve ever seen with surely no idea where to turn next.