FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – On a perfect spring day in New York, it felt more like Halloween at the PGA Championship with how many were dressed up in costume to cheer for Tiger Woods. Unfortunately, Woods could only deliver a performance akin to a trick or treater’s bag – his scorecard full of colour from an up-and-down day.
The crowds were robust and rowdy, but just a month removed from Woods’ Masters triumph, he looked more like the 43-year-old multi-time back surgery recipient than the steady champion we saw at Augusta National.
Woods hadn’t played a competitive round on the PGA Tour in 32 days.
He shot a 2-over 72 to open the PGA Championship at the tricky Bethpage Black, with its fairways averaging 26 yards wide. It was nine shots worse than Brooks Koepka, who was in his group.
Koepka’s 63 broke the course record and Woods said that score was the “worst” the defending PGA champion could have shot.
Score aside, though, fans were just happy to see Woods in competition again.
Two 30-year-olds had child-sized tiger costumes on, and they high-fived when Woods’s first birdie of the day fell (he knocked a 204-yard approach to 15 feet on No. 15 and drained the putt). They posed for photos with fellow Tiger Woods fans, both young and old. A woman in her mid-50’s had a shirt that said, ‘The jacket still fits,’ and snapped a selfie between them.
Comments from the gallery ranged from “the greatest of all time!” to some highly inappropriate and unpublishable.
Two other guys – holding two beers in the mid-morning sunshine – were dressed like Woods from last year’s PGA Championship, red Nike shirts and backwards hats completing their ensembles.
Woods had a laser-like focus as he traversed Bethpage’s 7,400-yard layout, but the crowd energy was palpable. Woods’s caddie, Joe LaCava, called the crowds “great all day.” Koepka said “obviously” everybody in New York was going to be cheering for Woods.
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Bethpage Black is dubbed the people’s country club. Augusta National, it’s not.
But the thing about the New York crowds is that they lifted Woods up just as much as the ones at Augusta last month.
The two groups have their differences of course. There’s running and people in costumes here, along with cell phones. The quarter-zip sweaters are more grey and blue, not pink and orange. They have identifiable accents, sure, but here they order pretzels, not peach cobbler.
Even though Woods opened with a double bogey on the par-4 10th and added another double on the par-3 17th – and admitted his round wasn’t as clean as he wanted it to be – it didn’t dampen the spirits of the New York faithful.
Woods did give them more to cheer about after he made the turn – sinking birdies on No. 1 and 2, and drained a long eagle on the par-5 4th. But overall, he said his round slipped away from him. He missed six putts Thursday less than 10 feet in length.
“The golf course is playing tough,” said Woods. “I felt like it’s not that hard to make bogeys out here, but it’s hard to make birdies.”
Woods was pressed about whether his lack of practice resulted in his shaky start, but he denied that had any impact on him. He confirmed he missed his practice time on Wednesday due to illness and decided to rest. He hadn’t played a full 18-hole round at Bethpage Black since a pre-tournament scouting trip eight days ago.
LaCava confirmed to Sportsnet that Woods would be leaving the property immediately Thursday, so no more practice was had.
Woods said he felt good, and he wasn’t showing any signs of wincing or discomfort while walking the brutal course.
He was up early for an 8:24 a.m. tee-time, and after a full warm-up, he had to sit in a 10-minute shuttle ride to the 10th tee – which is on the opposite end of the property as the practice facility. The only thing that brought him down Thursday was his play.
“I didn’t get off to a very good start,” said Woods. “It was a good drive (on 10) and ended up in a bad spot, and I compounded the problem with trying to use the backboard behind the hole there and missing a putt I should have made. And then found my way back around. Got it back under par for the day, and let a couple slip away with a couple bad putts and a couple mistakes at the end.”
En route to winning the Masters in April, Woods didn’t make an eagle. He didn’t record a double bogey, either. He had both of those Thursday at the PGA Championship.
Woods had moments that were just “bizarre,” he said, and moments where he whipped the crowd into a frenzy with his play. While Koepka made it look easy on Thursday, Woods made it look hard. He knows he has work to do.
But no matter what happens on Friday, it seems the crowds will be there to support him – and more than a handful will be dressed in his likeness: both the real Tiger, and a real tiger.