Tiger Woods at US Open 2015: Grading Tiger's Round 1 Performance
Tiger Woods put his ball in play just before 3 p.m. PST at the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay. Oddsmakers had the former world No. 1's Round 1 over/under at 74.5 according to the Linemakers.
It's safe to say those taking the over were pretty happy.
Woods was awful. Historically awful, even, at Chambers Bay, carding his worst round in a U.S. Open: a 10-over-par 80.
Tiger opened with two bogeys in a row and never recovered. He was four over through six and carded an outward-nine 39. Playing the difficult 11th through 14th holes, Woods made three bogeys and a disastrous triple bogey to fall to a shocking 10 over through 14.
And while the obvious answer is "terribly," we'll examine how Tiger fared in driving, iron play, short game, putting and course management.
And we'll answer the question: What was his overall grade? (Hint: Not an A).
Click through for the full breakdown.
Driving: D
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Tiger Woods opened with a near-300-yard drive that found the fairway at Chambers Bay.
Things were going so well!
Unfortunately, that was the high-water mark of his round abutting the Puget Sound. He was wide of the fairway with an iron on his second hole (a bad miss) and found fairways at an every-other-hole pace for the rest of the round. When Woods missed the fairway, he was largely unable to find greens, which led, not surprisingly, to bogeys.
Woods did pipe a few good drives Thursday, although he did miss badly on the third, fifth and 14th holes.
For the day, Woods hit six of 14 fairways (43 percent).
The field average when Woods finished his round: 72.91 percent. Driving the ball wasn't supposed to be the difficult aspect at the second-shot course. For Woods, however, getting the ball in play was an issue, to say the least.
When you hit nearly 30 percent fewer fairways than the field average, you get a D. If he'd missed two more fairways, an F would have been the only grade here. Woods gets a gentleman's D.
Iron/Approach Play: D-
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First, the positive: Taking irons off the tee at Chambers Bay's four par threes, Tiger Woods found the green all four times.
If we take the par threes out of the equation, though, Woods was just five of 14 greens in regulation. He totaled nine of 18 greens in regulation—50 percent.
With the field average near 70 percent of greens in regulation, Woods' iron play was disappointing, and a few shots stick out. He hit two shots from fairway bunkers fat (fourth and 14th holes) and hit an atrocious approach from the 150 yards out in the center of the fairway.
The 25-handicapper duff with a three-wood from the fairway at the par-five 18th also stands out here as particularly awful. Golf Channel's Tiger Tracker tweeted the following regarding the shot: "Find the fairway at 18, then hits a nasty, cold-topped, slither-shank 3-wood that you won’t believe. He’s in a bunker that’s not in play."
Of course, when Woods found the fescue off the tee, such as at the eighth hole, he was largely unable to hit the green, as you'd expect. It's not really fair to chastise his iron play in these situations, as sin lies with the driver.
Still, 50 percent of greens in regulation is among the worst in the field. He gets a D- grade here, with the par-three play saving him from an F designation.
Short Game: D
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Tiger Woods' play around the greens certainly wasn't overwhelming during his opening round.
There were situations where the Stanford alum had to take his medicine, to be sure, but when he had opportunities to get up and down, he faltered, although he did nice work with the putter from off the green on consecutive holes at four and five.
At No. 2, Woods didn't get a bunker shot as close as he'd have liked, made bogey. He hacked the ball over the place on the 14th, chunking a bunker shot that didn't make it to the green and following it with a pedestrian effort en route to a triple bogey.
Woods did get lucky once around the greens, nearly holing it from a fried-egg lie at the 10th hole and saving par.
Overall, Woods gets a D for his short-game efforts. If he'd been able to get up and down every time, he'd have earned an A. If he had blown it on every occasion, we'd give him an F. He only managed to save par on a couple of occasions, but this had more to do with his putter than anything else, such as at the fourth hole, where he couldn't convert a straightforward five-footer for par.
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Putting: F
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It didn't seem like Tiger Woods made a putt of significance during his first round. His only birdie was facilitated by a four-footer after stuffing his approach shot at the 16th.
Other than that, Woods didn't make a putt of any length or significance. He took 36 putts, an average of two per hole, which is atrocious. The field averaged just over 1.8 strokes per green and handled Chambers Bay's undulating Poa annua surfaces significantly better than the former world No. 1.
Woods missed a few heartbreakers, such as at the fourth hole when his par putt just stayed out and the sixth hole when, again, his par effort just lipped out. Same story at the eighth hole.
Nothing went right for Woods with the flatstick. The worst putter on tour averages 31.2 putts per round. To do significantly worse than that? Awful. F is the only grade here.
Overall: F
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USA Today's Steve DiMeglio summed up Woods' opening round succinctly: "The narrative hasn't changed for Tiger Woods. He's still not good."
What can you really say about a round where a golfer shoots 80 and finishes third from the bottom of the leaderboard? Woods looks to be eight strokes outside the cut line entering his second round. And while anything can happen, TW looks to be heading for an early exit.
The round was terrible in its totality, embarrassingly bad, really.
Woods prescribed more work for himself following the calamitous effort: "I'm trying as hard as I can to do it, and for some reason I just can't get the consistency that I'd like to have out there."
Whether more work and more competitive rounds will jump-start Woods' faltering career remains to be seen. What was clear Thursday, however, is that the work Woods has put in preparing for Chambers Bay over the past several weeks has yielded nothing less than his worst round in a major ever.
Obviously, an F is the final grade here.
But hey, at least Tiger was able to keep perspective and joke after the round. In assessing his performance, Woods said, "The bright side is at least I kicked Rickie [Fowler]'s butt today."
Fowler fired an 11-over 81, which was one stroke worse than Woods.
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