No sooner had the ultimate putt dropped on day three of this US PGA Championship than it was introduced Tiger Woods had withdrawn after 54 holes. The 46-year-old, making simply his second match look since being concerned in a critical automobile crash final February, regarded in extreme bodily bother throughout a 3rd spherical of 79.
Woods had refused to verify he would play the ultimate 18 holes thereafter. “Effectively, I’m sore,” stated Woods. “I do know that’s for a truth. We’ll do some work and see the way it goes.”
Woods was now 12 over par for the match, which positioned him on the backside of the sector in a share of 76th. What occurred subsequent, through a quick PGA of America assertion, will inevitably increase questions concerning the legitimacy of this comeback from critical accidents to his decrease proper leg. Woods had in any other case been anticipated to play within the US Open subsequent month and July’s Open Championship at St Andrews.
“I simply didn’t play nicely,” he added of spherical three. “I didn’t hit the ball very nicely and received off to not the beginning I wanted to get off to. I believed I hit a superb tee shot down the 2nd and ended up within the water. I simply by no means actually received any type of momentum on my facet.
“I couldn’t get off the bogey prepare. I didn’t do something proper. I didn’t hit many good pictures. Consequently I ended up with a fairly excessive rating.”
A 12 months in the past, Woods was in a wheelchair. Making the minimize at each the Masters and the US PGA – most of the world’s high gamers managed neither – is a critical achievement.
This, nevertheless, is Tiger Woods. He lives by totally different requirements. Woods closed at Augusta Nationwide final month with back-to-back rounds of 78. There, as right here at Southern Hills, poor golf mixed with poor motion on the weekend. It appeared weird to recollect Woods spoke of competing for this US PGA on Friday night, at which level he sat a dozen pictures from the lead.
Shaun Norris, who performed in Woods’s firm on Saturday, supplied each sympathy and strands of hope for the long run. “He’s such an exceptional participant,” stated Norris. “You are feeling so sorry for him having to undergo this. However then once more, you additionally see the kind of individual that he’s; that he grinds by way of the whole lot and pushes himself, even all of the ache and that. It’s not simple to see a man like him must undergo that and wrestle like that.
“He’s swinging it properly, and I believe he’ll be again as soon as he will get again to regular well being and types out all the issues. The willpower that the man has, I imply, it’s phenomenal. You may see he was battling simply as we speak to get the ball out of the opening now and again, even to bend out to place the ball on the tee; however pushing by way of it and getting all of the concentrate on on the proper instances and on the pictures is phenomenal.”