AUGUSTA, Ga. –– In some respects, all appears quite normal in Tiger Woods’ world. After all, he struggled badly with his tee shot at Augusta National’s first hole in a late-afternoon practice round Monday.
“Tea Olive” is the name of the hole, though it’s been for Woods what’s it’s been for many others – “The House of Horrors.” He is 15 over in 74 attempts at the hole during his 19 Masters, so it was hardly a surprise when he pull-hooked his opening tee shot so far left that it nearly found the adjacent ninth fairway.
But from an opening scene we’ve seen before, Woods followed with a bit of practice drama that reminded fans of past Masters – a touch-the-sky recovery shot over trees to inside of 6 feet. He made the birdie.
Heck, he’s made only six birdies there in his entire career, so what gives?
With Woods, who knows? He remains a fascinating curiosity, though there’s little doubt as to who still moves the needle like nobody else in this game - and maybe all of sports. On a warm afternoon with dark clouds giving off a hint of thunderstorms, Woods arrived late in the afternoon, went right to the range and started hitting chip shots at 3:30, then by 4:20 was on the first tee with nearly every patron in attendance following along.
Woods, whose brief chipping warm-up featured about six dozen swings, included breaks to offer a warm embrace to old friend Mark O’Meara. Proceeding to the range where he took a few full swings, he offered another two-handed hug to former swing coach Sean Foley.
By the time he made it to the first tee, Woods was officially ready for his third practice round in less than a week.
Sure, it was only a practice round, but Woods seemed to display nice touch from 50 yards and in. At the par-4 third, he drove it aggressively down the left side of the fairway, then skirted the cup with a perfectly flipped pitch from about 40 yards.
On the 240-yard fourth, Woods and O’Meara, two old practice buddies from their days at Isleworth, took the entertainment to a higher level. O’Meara took out a fairway wood, took dead aim at a flag tucked perilously over a front bunker, and landed a tee shot about 10 feet left of the flag. The crowd hooted and hollered, with one fan yelling to Woods, “Don’t let an old man do that to you!” Well, Woods answered, hitting a laser-like long iron that came down inside O’Meara’s ball, roughly 3 feet from the hole. The two left the tee grinning broadly at one another.
Woods would roll it in for yet another birdie.
