Tiger Woods: Missed opportunities define return to The Masters

Tiger Woods looked good overall in his return to The Masters, but he left too many shots on the course in a roller-coaster round.

Tiger Woods’s return to the Masters Tournament was the most moment in all of sports this year. The four-time champion has been a new man, and his game has looked sharp. With three straight top-15s coming into Augusta, many people (myself included) had him marked in as a favorite this week.

Unfortunately, expectations and reality don’t always match perfectly. Thursday at the Masters was a story of ups and downs for Tiger. In the end, they balanced, but that wasn’t what he (or many of us) wanted.

The round started, as it so often has in the past, with Tiger ripping his opening 3-wood left of the fairway. For those of you taking notes, this is going to be something of a trend today. On recovery, he hit a sharp, stinging draw out of the pine straw. A long putt from the fringe just burned the edge, but Woods carded a solid par.

The next two holes, Tiger ripped absolutely outstanding drives. On the par-5 2nd, he left himself just 219 downhill into the green, but flared his approach into the right greenside bunker. A solid birdie hole turned into work for a par.

On the par-4 3rd, Tiger ripped his driver to about 20 yards short of the green. His pitch wasn’t perfect, but the eight-footer for birdie was. The birdie had the patrons roaring – Tiger was under par at the Masters.

Missed chances and errant shots threatened to ruin Tiger’s return

Unfortunately for the throngs of fans following Tiger’s every stroke, that birdie was the only one they’d see for quite a while. Woods put his tee shot on the par-3 4th in the front greenside bunker, and blasted out to about 15 feet. The birdie putt never had much of a chance. Just like that, back to even par.

A second consecutive bogey on the par-4 5th came after (surprise) another bunker shot. At this point, I realized that Tiger’s recovery game was on point. However, if he had to keep relying on it, nothing good could really come.

Before the turn, the only other hole of note was the par-5 8th. Tiger has notoriously dominated the par-5s at Augusta over the years, and he absolutely ripped his drive here. He didn’t reach the green in two, though, and his third was long of the hole, leaving a tricky comeback putt. Par wasn’t damaging, but it didn’t do much to help, either.

Really, that last sentence could be the story of the day. Tiger wasn’t bad, at all on Thursday – not in the big picture, at least. At the start of Amen Corner on 11, Woods hit his drive so far right that he was begging for it to go “way right” just to get out of the trees. His aggressive second shot may have hit a patron before coming up short of the green. Bogey, but it could have been worse.

On 12, Tiger hit his tee shot into Rae’s Creek, short of the green. You don’t hear the phrase “saves bogey” often, but it definitely applied here. His approach barely hung onto the right side of the green, but he sunk the long putt to card a safe 4.

Tiger Woods came back late, but will it be enough?

The par-5 13th should have been a bounce back hole, but again, it wasn’t meant to be. Woods hit a 3-wood right, and his second shot further right, again amongst the patrons. He got on in three with about 12 feet to go, but the putt skirted past again.

Another scoring chance. Another tap-in par.

There is a silver lining here, if you look hard enough. Tiger made birdies on two of the next three holes to get back to +1 on the day. He hit his approach on 14 to about 7 feet per the Masters.com shot tracker. Then, on 16, he hit a safe tee shot to 22 feet, and drained an otherwise academic birdie putt. A pair of pars coming in gave him a smooth opener of +1, 73

After the round, Tiger was asked by ESPN how he felt about the score, and he said that he thought he played better than he scored. While I don’t necessarily agree – a relatively poor approach game doesn’t help anybody – he’s not dead in the water, by any stretch.

At the time of this writing, Woods’s 73 is good for a tie at 28th, five shots back of the lead shared by Haotong Li and Tony Finau. The clubhouse lead is at -3, tied between Henrik Stenson, Patrick Reed, Charley Hoffman and Adam Hadwin.

So, you’re saying there’s a chance? Maybe.

This field is stacked, and Tiger missed his biggest opportunities all day. Four times, really, as he played each of the four par-5s in even par. Considering the way some of his iron shots went sideways along the way Thursday, he’ll need every bit of scoring help he can get if he intends to compete on the weekend.

Next: Sergio Garcia's Masters Disaster

There’s an old saying about how the Masters doesn’t really begin until the second nine on Sunday. There’s also one about not winning the tournament on Thursday, even though you can definitely lose it. Tiger Woods didn’t do either of those, but we’ve got a long way to go until that 10th tee on Sunday, too.