Tiger Woods Believes He Still Has Chance after Quad at Island 17th

“Anyone who makes the cut has a chance to win this golf tournament,” Tiger Woods said to media after finishing his second round at The Players. He’s right, but he’s also being extremely positive because he faced a demon or two on the golf course and now has the scars on his scorecard to prove it.

Woods played well, except for the 17th hole, with its dastardly island green. That was an unmitigated disaster. A quad. Two in the water. Usually that happens to somebody else, someone not named Tiger Woods.

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“The first one, I was a bit surprised it went that far,” Woods said. “I took something off that wedge, and it flew a lot further than I thought.”

With temperatures in the mid-80s and a south wind, the ball just took off. He said the others in his group got a read off from his shot. He said if he had not hit first in the group, he might have taken something more off the first tee shot. Adding insult to injury, he had to hit another from the drop area.

“The second one I hit too flat and too hot,” he said. “I figured I can handle an 80-yard shot, and obviously, I can’t.”

His goal on both, he said, was to hit the ball into slope on the green, 20-25 feet from the hole.

“Number wise and club wise, it shouldn’t be that hard,” he explained. “But we all know if you land it up on top, it’s got a good chance of getting out of here. And that’s the tricky part.”

The only good thing was that Woods played the back nine first, and he had another 10 holes to repair the damage.

“I was pretty ticked, no doubt about that, and I was bound and determined to get it all back and get it back to five. I thought that would have been a hell of a fight,” he added about the bad blip in his score.

In the end, he finished at 3-under par and felt he had fought a good battle to get there. When he finished, he was only six back of the lead of 9-under par posted by Woods’ good friend, Jim Furyk. Then Tommy Fleetwood started birdie, eagle, birdie, and that meant Woods was eight back of the lead. Still, he has two days, and he was talking like a man determined to win somehow.

However, on either Saturday or Sunday, the timing is up in the air right now, the weather will change remarkably. There are chances of rain, at least on Sunday, and temperatures both days are supposed to be in the 60s. The wind is supposed to be from the north on Saturday and the northeast on Sunday.

Woods thinks it will be Sunday before the cold comes.

“The forecast actually has changed a little bit. It’s supposed to come out of the south tomorrow and then get nasty on Sunday coming out of the north,” he said. It seems like the only thing he was missing was a weather map and graphics to show movement of the inbound system.

“If it stays the way it is right now, with the wind coming out of the south, we don’t have to change much,” he added. “Right now, the golf course is playing really short, even for this time of year.”

Other than the 17th hole, he was pleased with the round.

“I really haven’t done a whole lot wrong,” he said, except for the one hole. “I very easily could be up near that lead. There’s no way I would be leading, but I would be close enough to that lead, given the weekend and the forecast.”

According to PGA Tour staffers, Hal Sutton, twice a winner at The Players, is the only golfer to win The Players with a triple or worse on his scorecard. It was in 2000, and Sutton made a six on the 17th hole in the third round. The tournament was eventually won in a playoff with Sutton defeating — guess who — Tiger Woods.

Next. Tiger Woods makes brutal quad on No. 17 at THE PLAYERS. dark

By Sunday, we will find out if Woods can better Sutton’s feat. We will also find out if Woods has a future as a weatherman.

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