Tiger Takes His MDF Streak Into Honda Saturday

Nothing like mushy lift, clean and place Florida golf to bring us back to reality after last week's thrilling match play, meaning the main intrigue heading into Honda Classic Saturday is Tiger's one-PGA Tour event streak of MDF's, MadeCut DidNot Finish.

Bob Harig on a Honda Friday where Tiger's short game came alive on the back nine in time to help him make the 36-hole cut.

"I was actually over the cut line, what after the bogey at 11,'' Woods said. "That was a hell of a bogey. I had a couple of loose iron shots coming in, and it was just a grind.''

If there is a bright spot for Woods, it was his short game around the greens. He saved par three times from bunkers and saved par on six of his last nine holes. He missed a 10-foot putt for birdie at the 18th hole or he'd have birdied all four of the par 5s through two rounds.

"Yeah, the short game was spotty, and now it's good again,'' Woods said. "So now I just need my ballstriking to come around.''

There is some precedent for a huge Honda comeback, Brian Wacker reminds us in mentioning Tiger's 11-shot deficit to Rory McIlroy two years ago.

Update on 2014-03-01 17:59 by Geoff

**No streak. Tiger posts a 65 hours before the leaders even tee off, and has a chance Sunday depending on what happens this afternoon.

Bob Harig writes:

The 65 was just his third of 10 rounds this year in the 60s, but there were flashes of the kind of play that saw him win five times last year.

"Probably the way I hit the golf ball, I felt a lot better,'' Woods said when asked what he was most pleased about. "Yesterday I didn't feel like I had much of a swing but today I hit the ball really solid, which was nice.''

Woods said there was little time to work on it after Friday's round ended late in the day and with the early-morning tee time. "I had a good range session this morning, came out the very first hole I hit it to 3 feet, spun it back to 15 feet and made the putt,'' he said.

Referee Of Sergio-Fowler Match Elaborates

Thanks to reader Patrick for sending in Dale Jackson's excellent roundup of his referree duties during last week's WGC Match Play match between Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia.

He explains the situation with the bees in which Garcia was well-within his right to ask for relief, and then tries to make sense of the strange concession by Sergio. Jackson comes away impressed by both players:

It quickly became clear that both Sergio and Ricky had made use of Rule 2-4, which sets, in part, “A player may concede his opponent’s next stroke at any time, provided the opponent’s ball is at rest.”  In language most golfers are used to, they had agreed their putts were “good for good”.  It was a very unusual move by Sergio to concede Ricky’s lengthy putt but he stated afterword he felt the bee incident on the previous hole had not been fair to Ricky who had a makable birdie putt that he missed.  The concessions by both players was sportsmanship of the highest level and it was consistent with how they conducted themselves throughout the match.  They were complementary of each other’s shots, seemed to enjoy each other’s company but played a hard fought and well played  match.

Update on 2014-02-26 04:43 by Geoff

**Meanwhile Golfweek Staff reports that Sergio would have given Rickie the putt if it were a Ryder Cup, too. Paging Captain Paul McGinley!