Woods proved that with one of the most Jekyll-and-Hyde weekends of his career at the 74th Masters. He made seven birdies in Saturday's third round but didn't break 70 and lost ground to the leaders. His highlight video from Sunday's final round might convince you that Woods shot 64 and won this Masters by six strokes. A package of his bad shots from the same round would make you think he's a 3-handicapper who shot 89. The truth was somewhere in between: this was one of the ugliest rounds of three-under-par you've ever seen.
Skeptics who doubted that Tiger could survive 72 holes of Augusta National this week got a boost right off the first tee when he pull-hooked his opening drive into the adjoining ninth fairway. His 40-yard pitch from in front of the green — a bread and butter shot for an in-form Tiger — was lucky to remain on the back fringe of the green and led to a bogey that put an immediate crimp on his chances to win, and sent exactly the wrong message to the leaders, Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood, that he wasn't going to breathe down their necks.
Still, Woods still has the never-say-die spirit in him. When he holed out with a wedge from the seventh fairway for an eagle — a kind of I-can-top-you-Phil moment after Mickelson's hole-out for eagle at the 14th on Saturday, the loudest roar of the week — then followed it up with birdies at the eighth and ninth holes, it appeared he might still be a factor. But that was as close as Tiger ever got.
He played Plinko in the trees right of the 11th fairway but looked likely to escape unscathed after hoisting a Grade A recovery shot over the trees to five feet. Except he missed the par putt. Bundle the putts Woods missed from inside five feet on the weekend, and the held-together-with-baling-wire-and-twine swing he used still would've had him pushing Mickelson and Westwood to the bitter end.
The frustrations of his play, and maybe of this entire humbling week, finally boiled over at the 14th. He was out of it by then, four shots back, but he stiffed an approach shot to four feet. He barely caught a piece of the hole with the birdie putt, then walked over and without taking the time to properly set up, stabbed at the two-footer for par. He missed that one, too. Three putts from five feet. That's not a Tiger Woods we're familiar with.
Tiger Woods proved at Masters that he still doesn't need his best to contend
