AUGUSTA, Ga. — The flurry of security elements moving into place let the few people hanging around the backside of the clubhouse know Tiger Woods was coming out to the parking lot. His caddie, Joe LaCava, had already dropped Woods’ clubs in his car and headed away on a golf cart. The fans milling around bundled against the chill. Then Woods stepped outside and walked with a pronounced limp toward his car. He looked in pain, and the idea that he’d been somehow willing himself to not limp in front of the cameras made his long, brutal Saturday feel more poignant. Stripped of his mask, he wore heavy the last 14 months, and especially the last two days.
Woods shot 78. The round looked as bad as the number sounds. He grimaced more than he’d done before. Howling winds blew around the course, the temperature steadily dropping, which is the worst possible weather for his reconstructed and aching leg. He cracked a joke about it earlier in the week — “I think anyone who’s in this room who’s older than me can probably attest to that” — but it didn’t look funny in the setting sun, headed to spend the next few hours hoping his team can find enough duct tape and wire to get him back to the first tee Sunday.
If that sounds bleak, it’s because it felt that way a little. The energy bled out of the course as people realized he didn’t have a championship run in him. Not this year. He four-putted a hole. He three-putted four more. He struggled to bend over to read the greens. Even so, there were flashes of what used to be and what might be again, when he has more time to get stronger and to heal. Standing on the 12th tee, looking up and trying to figure the wind swirling in Amen Corner, he did the math in his head. He talked to LaCava, who held a 9-iron. The wind changed.
“Nine or wait it out?” LaCava asked.
Tiger took the club and aimed. He stuck it on the green and rolled in his birdie putt. He birdied No. 13, too, before making bogey on both 16 and 17. A crowd gathered…
Source : espn
