If you stayed up to watch you know it was an uncomfortable few hours of Tiger Woods in the Dubai Desert Classic. Without a helpful putter and any fluidity to his body movement, Tiger posted 77 as the field torched an Emirates Golf Club that will have strong day two winds.
A similar body language issue was apparent last week at Torrey Pines, where Woods looked less-fluid on day one after coasting early in the pro-am and swinging freely during the back nine (as temperatures rose).
He noted the early morning issue after missing the cut at Torrey:
Q. Tiger, just following on that, how are you physically? How have you handled the cold weather and what do you have to do to prepare for days like this? I'm sure it's a process that's more involved than it's ever been.
TIGER WOODS: It is, it's a long process in the mornings trying to get ready and trying to get warmed up. You know, the task and the tall order is to stay warm and stay loose. That's one of the things that I hadn't dealt with. I haven't dealt with at home and we're basically in a dome down there in south Florida. We haven't had to deal with cold, damp conditions like this. It was different.
But, you know, it's something we had already ‑‑ we had been planning about and thinking about what we needed to do; how to layer up properly, how to stay warm, move around, exercises I may have to do on course while playing, different things how to stay loose and I did.
Any back injury sufferer, let alone one who has been operated on multiple times, knows mornings are the toughtest. Yet even with the best physio's to help loosen up pre-round, the lack of physical freedom must be a concern.
In reading those who made the trek to Dubai, everyone in attendance sensed exactly what we watched on Golf Channel's coverage: little comfort level from Woods.
Bob Harig for ESPN noted the cautious body language from range to first tee and early on in the round.
But this is the new normal for Woods, who moves around carefully, takes his time crouching down to read putts and seemingly has difficulty getting loose for early-morning rounds.
That was the case last week at Torrey Pines and again on Thursday, where Woods has dug himself a hole and is looking at another weekend off in his second official tournament back following a 17-month layoff due to multiple back surgeries in 2015.
John Huggan for GolfDigest.com:
It wasn’t all about misdirection with the irons though. Again displaying a disquietingly cautious gait and a stiff and ungainly finish to his supposedly “pain-free” swing, Woods struggled to make any real headway on a day when he only rarely strung more than one or two good shots together. Almost every hole was marked by mistakes that turned birdie chances into pars and pars into bogeys.
Alistair Tait for Golfweek.com on the performance as it relates to Tiger's past play at Emirates.
In seven previous appearances around the Emirates course, Woods’s worst score was a 75 in the final round in 2011. He held a 68.17 stroke average through 28 rounds, and was 92 under. So 77 is actually nine shots above his personal par.
“I wasn’t in pain at all,” said Woods, dismissing suggestions he looked to be walking gingerly. “I was just trying to hit shots and I wasn’t doing a very good job.”
Tiger was in decent spirits in his post-round interview and talking about adding lead tape to his balky putter, posted here by GolfChannel.com.
And the round highlights.
Surprising, however, are the plans to take the visual and technological presentation of the Rules to a different level.
