Jason Dufner hasn’t played with Tiger Woods since the 2009 Australian Masters.
Since the last tournament Woods won.
They were paired together on Saturday afternoon at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.
Neither was, ahem, at his best.
Woods turned in a schizophrenic round of 74 — he was either brilliant or dreadful, rarely anything in between — while Dufner limped home in 78.
But Dufner saw something beyond the disappointing 2-over-par round from Woods.
“To tell you the truth, I thought he hit it better today than when I played with him in Australia,” he said.
“He hit some really solid shots today and he drove it much better.
“The difference is his short game isn’t where he wants it.
“I think he knows that.”
Woods provided Dufner with an early illustration of what really separates him these days from the demigod who shot 259 under par on the tour in 2000.
The first hole at Bay Hill is, for him, a fairway wood and an 8- or 9-iron. Woods needed to get off to a strong start if he wanted to do a little saber rattling at the leaders, starting six back of Martin Laird’s lead.
Instead, he overcooked a draw off the tee, sent his approach from thick rough into the front bunker and didn’t get up and down.
After two pars, he unleashed a bombed drive and hit a 4-iron from 222 yards that landed 2 feet from the flag on the par-5 fifth and released to about 30 feet.
“That’s as good and as high as you can hit it,” said Steve Williams of the iron.
Woods two-putted for birdie, then proceeded to take the wind out of his sails by butchering the short par-4 fifth.
It’s an iron off the tee and a wedge, but he tugged the approach and found the back-left bunker. Yet again, Woods failed to save par.
Then the good Tiger came back on the sixth. He hit the second-longest drive of the day — three yards behind Robert Garrigus — on the par 5 and stuck a “little 5-iron” from 207 to about 10 feet.
Better still, he drained the eagle putt, which he greeted with a little fist pump and a broad smile which served to remind that he hardly ever smiles anymore.
The gallery roared its approval.
It all should’ve been enough to ignite the round, but these days with Woods, it’s mistakes that define him.
On the eighth, he had a straightforward pitch into the green and, as he later admitted: “I flubbed it.”
Since re-learning how to chip and pitch under Sean Foley, Woods has had too many such flubs.
Then on the ninth came one of those Tiger moments we haven’t seen for a long time.
A wild drive — he smashed his driver into the tee box after seeing his ball veering toward the driving range — left him to the side of a tree with no obvious shot to the green.
Somehow, Woods conjured an opening and then saved par from about 30 yards.
“It was nice to get some kind of momentum going into the back nine where I felt if I shot under par, I would be right there with a chance going into tomorrow,” he said.
“Just didn’t happen.”
No, it didn’t.
After failing to birdie the first three holes on the back, Woods rolled the dice by firing at the front pin on the 13th.
He dunked his shot into the water. If that wasn’t bad enough, he had a chip for par that was makeable, but hit it too hard and missed a short bogey putt.
On the 16th, he was in fairway bunker and tried to go over the water and onto the green of the par 5.
Remember the shot he hit from the bunker over water to 10 feet on the last hole to win the 2000 Canadian Open?
This wasn’t like that.
Woods had to hit the ball 208 yards. He fatted the shot 184 yards, barely reaching the water.
“The round kind of turned at 13,” he later said.
“I had to get aggressive there. I needed to probably shoot three or four under par at least to have a chance going into tomorrow.
“Paid the price for it.
“Went two yards right of where I wanted to and ended up right there in the water.”
Still, he’s ever the optimist.
“I feel like I’m swinging well. If it do it right, I can hit some pretty good shots,” he said.
“But today, two bad swings, put the ball in the water twice, that’s three shots, and a couple missed putts; a round that should have been under par easily ended up over par.”
Sunday, he said, would be about “posting a good round so I can get a little momentum going into Augusta.”
The right kind of momentum, that is.
