Tiger Woods starts well, but falls with bogey-laden 79 in first round

For a few moments, it looked like Tiger Woods was going to have a great week at the 152nd Open Championship. Then the reality of Tiger Woods, 48, set in at major championships. After starting 1-under par, Woods could only manage a 79 in his first Open appearance since the 2022 edition at St. Andrews. He was tied for 140th entering the clubhouse.

A pair of pars started Tiger’s round in the afternoon heat – the slightly easier of the two – with a long birdie putt poured into the third hole to improbably push the three-time Golf of the Year champion to 1 under and two shots off the early lead held by his buddy, Justin Thomas.

It was a real moment for someone who hasn’t had many of those at major tournaments in recent years.

But from there, it all fell apart. Woods played the rest of his first nine holes in 5-over and finished with a score of 40. That six-hole stretch was highlighted by a double bogey on the par-3 5th hole, where Woods had to back-pitch out of a bunker, unable to get up and down to make bogey.

Rory McIlroy, who was just one shot better with a 78 in the morning round, said earlier in the day that Royal Troon is the kind of place where “your misses are punished a lot more … whether you miss in a fairway bunker or even in the rough.”

That was also the case for Tiger. His misses were too wide and his putter went cold on the last six holes of the opening round. He needed 32 putts in total that day, which put him in 130th place in the standings when he finished.

The final nine holes were better, but only marginally so. Woods shot 3-over on that side, making only one birdie on each nine holes. It wasn’t dream golf, but worse, it wasn’t even brilliant golf in the “make a bunch of pars and get back to about par” kind of way. It was just miserable golf, with seemingly nowhere for the 15-time major winner to go.

“I didn’t do a whole lot today,” Tiger said. “I made that putt on the third hole, and then I think I made three putts in three holes today. I didn’t hit my irons very close, and I didn’t look at myself much today. I’ve got to do something in the 60s tomorrow to get going for the weekend.”

Now comes the hard part, the one he hasn’t done in a long time. Woods hasn’t made the cut and finished the weekend in a major outside of the Masters since the 2019 PGA Championship at Harding Park. The last time he made the cut and finished the weekend in an Open was in 2018, when he finished T6. Before that, it was 2014. It’s just not something that has happened often in the second half of Woods’ career.

He has a chance, though. The cut will probably be around 5 or 6 over. He’ll probably need to shoot 1 under or better for Woods to make it to the weekend. So either he’s going to have to improve his game (which seems unlikely over the next 15 hours) or he’s going to have to make a much better putt than he did in the first round.

Either way, it will take something Woods didn’t have Thursday for him to play those final 36 holes at Royal Troon.