Tiger Woods: Rough Day 3 in Masters Proves Comeback Talk Was Premature

Tiger Woods' past two years have been mired in mediocrity, but it seemed that a first-place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational two weeks ago had resurrected the Tiger of old.

It seems that we all got our hopes up too soon.

Woods was deemed the odds-on favorite to win the green jacket this year after winning the Arnold Palmer, despite exiting the Cadillac Championship a couple of weeks before that with a left leg injury. All of the signs of a comeback seemed to be there a couple of weeks ago: the birdies on the par-five's, the fact that all four times he's won at Augusta, he has also won the tournament immediately beforehand…

But midway through the third day of the 2012 Masters, Tiger's performance at Augusta was average. Maybe even less than average. Not good enough to get him past 38th (as of late Saturday afternoon) on the leaderboard.

Now, with one round remaining, it will take a miracle for Tiger to win. He's three over after shooting a 72 on Thursday and a 75 on Friday. He's been visibly frustrated and his drives have been inconsistent. As Bleacher Report's Will Leivenberg points out, he's only hit the fairway 25 of 42 times off the tee, which is just under 60 percent.

He even found himself in a bit of hot water on Friday, after he dropped his nine-iron on the the 16th hole and then kicked it backward.

On Saturday, Woods apologized for the incident, telling ESPN.com's Bob Harig:

"

Certainly, I'm frustrated at times and I apologize if I offended anybody by that. But I've hit some bad shots and it's certainly frustrating at times not hitting the ball where you need to hit it.

"

It seems that Tiger, too, thought he was out of the woods after his big win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It seems that he thought, after 30 winless months on the PGA Tour, that he was finally back in action. Prior to the start of this year's Masters, you could feel how much Tiger wanted to win, how much he wanted to be himself again.

But it's been rough for him at Augusta thus far. For the first two rounds, he failed to birdie any par-fives. Prior to this year's Masters, there were just two rounds in his career when he failed to birdie a par-five. He also hasn't yet broken par in any round at Augusta, which has happened only once in his career thus far.

In his quest to regain his former glory, it's clear Tiger just isn't there yet, and upon this realization, he seems to be breaking down.

One win in two years does not a comeback make. Tiger just needs more time to become the greatest golfer in the world again. A PGA Tour win makes it easier to get there, but it doesn't complete the journey.

Tiger just has more work to do before his comeback is truly complete.