Tiger Woods Struggles Mightily in 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational 3rd Round

Tiger Woods tumbled down the leaderboard Saturday at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, shooting a three-over 73 in the third round.

Woods entered the clubhouse at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, in a tie for 28th place at three under, 11 strokes behind leader Justin Thomas.

Tiger entered the day tied for 10th after carding scores of 66 and 68 in the first two rounds of the tournament.

According to ESPN Stats & Info, Woods entered the day leading the PGA Tour in third-round scoring average:

Despite that, Woods finished the third round of the Bridgestone Invitational with four bogeys and just one birdie.

Per ESPN Stats & Info, that matched his worst score to par in a weekend round this season.

As pointed out by Golf Channel's Tiger Tracker, Woods was off the mark in essentially every facet during the third round:

After parring the first six holes of the day, Woods carded a bogey on the par-three seventh.

He followed that up with a promising approach on eighth, as seen in the following video courtesy of the PGA Tour, but he had to settle for another par:

Woods bogeyed for the second time on the 11th, but he finally started to gain some momentum on the par-three 12th.

Tiger had a solid approach off the tee and then sank a intermediate putt for birdie to improve his score to one over on the day:

Unfortunately for Woods, he bogeyed each of the next two holes, which essentially sealed his fate for the round and tournament.

The 42-year-old veteran did have one major highlight left in him, though, when he hit the flag stick with his approach on No. 18:

While that elicited a big reaction from the crowd, Woods went on to miss the birdie putt, and he closed out the round with another par.

Saturday's performance was a bump in the road for Woods, who had been looking for his third consecutive finish of sixth or better.

A fantastic showing in Sunday's fourth round could potentially get him in contention for a top-10 result, but his struggles in the third essentially ensured that he will not be in the mix for his first win since 2013.