In the illustrious history of Tiger Woods at the Masters, there have been 24 starts, 23 made cuts, five green jackets, two miraculous comebacks and now, something else.
A four-putt.
On Masters Saturday, the 15-time major champ doomed his chances of a moving day charge with a four-putt double-bogey that moved him more than 10 strokes out of the lead.
As with most Augusta National mistakes, Tiger’s four-putt debacle actually started on the fairway of the par-4 5th hole, with Woods at 1 over for the week and looking to mount a Saturday comeback. After perhaps his most confident drive of the day — a slash so good that Tiger didn’t bother watching — he faced a routine chip shot into an elevated green with a back-left flag. Almost immediately after making contact with the approach, Woods recoiled in disgust. He’d misjudged the swing, and he knew it. Even if his ball was going to wind up on the putting surface, he’d just made life that much more difficult on himself.
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Woods’ next mistake came on his first putt, a long, arcing try over a swale from 60 feet. The second half of the putt came almost entirely downhill, and Woods misjudged the speed on the backend. The ball wound up six feet from the hole, leaving a biting downhill putt for par.
“You know, you hear so many players say ‘take some of the break out,'” Colt Knost said on a stream for Masters.com. “Well, here the greens are so fast and they have so much break, you do that, you’re going to have a lengthy one coming back.”
Just as the words left Knost’s mouth, Woods left his par try high of the hole, leaving another three-footer going back the other way.
Tiger didn’t bother lining up the putt. He stood over his ball, made a quick stroke … and watched as it horseshoed around the cup and came back to him.
“Oh my goodness,” Knost gasped, as Tiger quickly tapped in.
“Four putts for Tiger Woods,” Knost said.
The double bogey on 5 moved Tiger to three over for the day, 11 strokes back of Scottie Scheffler’s 36-hole, eight under mark (Scheffler reached 10 under early on Saturday).
For Tiger, the four-putt was the first of his Augusta National career — and perhaps one of the few Tiger Masters records to forget.