Tiger Woods Barely Makes Weekend; Previews Chambers Bay for U.S. Open

Tiger Woods just squeaked under the cut line at The Memorial, his first tournament since The Players. By his own admission, he is still not where he wants to be with swing and his game. 

"This is nice to get out here and play and test it and see what it's like, and also to fight like I did and get myself back in the tournament," he said. "I need to do a little bit of work and keep progressing." 

He said it is still a battle to keep from lapsing back into his old swing. 

"Sometimes it's taken me about a year, and then it kicked in and I did pretty good after that," he added about swing changes in the past.  

Woods' primary problem recently has been his inability to find fairways. In addition, he still has the two-way miss. He only hit five of 14 fairways on Day 2 after hitting just four of 14 in Round 1.  In addition, he's hitting into unforgiving bluegrass rough. While we don't know what direction was intended on each tee shot, we imagine he had fairway in mind. 

Fortunately Woods made the cut at Muirfield Village on the number, one under par, and will have two more competitive rounds to sort out his driver before taking yet another week off to prepare for the U.S. Open.  He played some practice rounds at Chambers Bay, the U.S. Open venue, there last week. 

"It's very challenging in the sense that Mike [Davis of the USGA] has so many options that he can present us as challenges off the tees or into the greens," Woods said about the course that was recently added to the U.S. Open list of locations. "There are so many different numbers that you have to know off the tees and how that's going to play." 

Woods noted that the course is different from the typical, old-school U.S. Open venues with narrow fairways and rough that players can only hack out of, costing them a shot.

"At Chambers, there's so many different landing areas and aggressive or passive lines," he explained. "Run the ball up 40 feet, 50 feet, even sometimes 30 yards right of the green or left of the green, and it comes back 10 feet. It's a different type of golf course. We don't even see this in British Opens because they're not banked like this." 

On the other hand, he said, players can run the ball up to the green on every hole, but because of the design, it's not always possible. 

"Some of the holes you can't because they're too long or too steep; they're up the hill too much," he added.  

Regarding Mike Davis' comments a few weeks ago that competitors would not be able to just show up and learn the course in a practice round or two, Woods said when they got to the property and saw it, Davis' comments made sense because there were so many different options for playing holes. 

There were simply more challenges than in a typical U.S. Open, which is typically challenging because of the premium placed on driving in the fairway and hitting greens in regulation. This course has more to it than that. 

"When Mike says something like that, you got to pay attention to it, because he's an extremely bright man," Woods said. "We got out there and it was—it was like, oh, my God, there's so many different options here." 

The first practice round, Woods spent three-and-a-half hours on the front nine and the same amount of time on the back. He said his second round went a little faster.

"We spent a lot of time there, a lot of homework, a lot of getting numbers, getting a feel for how we're going to play it because there's so many different options," Woods concluded.

One difference in appearance is black sand. 

"I probably can't say it's going to be like this during the Open, but we played when it was raining, so it was a little muddy. There were different—how can I put it—different densities to it," he said. "Some balls bounced out of there, some dug."  

However, he had no problem with bunkers near the greens and was able to get spin on the ball. 

Overall, Woods liked the course and could see how it provides flexibility in setup. 

"It could be a golf course in which, hey, this golf course is pretty easy. You hit long driver down there and drive it on three of the par fours," Woods explained.   

He said it could also be problematic.

"It's going to be frustrating," he added. "You hit driver, 5‑wood on a couple of par‑fours, that are 510 yards straight up the hill. I smoked a driver and had a 5‑wood to the green that I can barely get to."   

There was also a par four that was downhill and 546 yards.

"If you tip it out, it's over 7,900. And so obviously it's not going be to be that," Woods concluded. 

The mystery of the setup will be revealed Thursday of U.S. Open week. If Woods took seven hours to practice 18 holes, the only prediction we can make is that the typical U.S. Open, six-hour rounds will take even longer than that on Thursday and Friday.  

Kathy Bissell is a Golf Writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand or from official interview materials from the PGA Tour, USGA, R&A or PGA of America.