From the second he first noticed the long-term forecast, Tiger Woods needed to be dreading Saturday on the Masters.
He needed to be considering {that a} check of willpower and ache tolerance would confront him at Augusta Nationwide, presenting a much more forbidding problem than the additional yardage added to the thirteenth gap.
His longtime caddie and counsellor Joe LaCava noticed the second of reality coming from a mile away, the NY Submit studies.
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Workforce Tiger doesn’t usually deal within the forex of unfavourable hypotheticals, however along with his proper leg badly broken from his single-car wreck in 2021, the 47-year-old Woods has no alternative however to acknowledge the storms round him, and to concede that each Masters look might be his final. Together with this one.
When LaCava spoke with Submit earlier than the event, the caddie known as Woods’ damage “devastating” and incompatible with the climate transferring in.
“My largest concern stepping into … is we get quite a lot of rain and thunderstorms and we get the cease and begin, or we get additional holes someday,” LaCava stated.
“I can’t think about him going 27-plus holes (in someday) round right here. … I’m hoping at the beginning that doesn’t occur.”
However now it’s going to occur now. Woods is scheduled to play 29 holes on Sunday in an expertise that needs to be positively brutal, much more so than the 14 holes Woods endured on within the chilled, windswept rain.
Woods didn’t play these 14 holes. He survived them, barely, particularly the seven that he was compelled to tackle within the third spherical after his shut good friend, Justin Thomas, faltered late to assist Woods make the reduce at 3-over par.
It means Woods made his twenty third consecutive Masters reduce to match the file held by Gary Participant and Fred {Couples}.
However the sight of Woods limping across the course in apparent ache made for significantly grim viewing, and the inclement climate means he’ll possible must hobble round for 27 holes in someday.
Woods went on the market after lunch to get eaten alive by the beast Augusta Nationwide had develop into.
However first, when the suspended second spherical resumed at 8am on Saturday, Woods wanted mere seconds to validate what LaCava and Rory McIlroy had stated concerning the state of his sport.
The caddie and the competitor each stated that Woods’ energy and precision had been adequate to contend for a sixth inexperienced jacket if solely he may journey a cart.
With no cart in sight, Woods stood on the twelfth tee in a cut-off vest over lengthy sleeves and lashed an attractive tee shot proper over the flagstick to 4 toes.
Woods takes endlessly within the morning to loosen up his surgically altered physique, and but he conquered one of the daunting photographs in main championship golf along with his very first swing.
After which he pulled his birdie putt in an amateurish approach, signalling the struggles to come back.
Woods managed to advance to Spherical 3 regardless of his bogey-bogey end and, although he equalled that Masters file, perhaps that wasn’t what his leg would’ve most well-liked.
This was old-school NFL winter climate, not Masters climate in Augusta.
The sideways rain made certain of that. Woods was preventing these situations as valiantly as he may, whereas his leg was preventing the famously hilly course and — even when dry and agency — one of the tough walks in golf. It was a misplaced tee-to-green trigger.
Carrying a ski cap over his hat as he began on the again 9, Woods bogeyed two of the primary 5 holes at the beginning unravelled round him.
His third shot on the par-5 fifteenth landed on the inexperienced and spun again into the pond en path to a double bogey.
On the sixteenth, the place he has made quite a lot of magic, Woods seemed on in disgust when his ball made a beeline for the drink once more. His second straight double bogey left him at 9-over, useless final among the many 54 gamers who made the reduce.
As he leaned over to retrieve his ball, Woods paused in obvious ache, and slowly reached into the sixteenth cup. He headed to the seventeenth tee with the hobble of an 85-year-old man.
“I’m very fortunate to have this leg,” Woods stated earlier than the event.
“It’s mine. Sure, it had been altered and there’s some {hardware} in there, however it’s nonetheless mine. It’s been robust and can at all times be robust.”
“I don’t know what number of extra I’ve in me.”
Earlier than Tiger Woods begins counting, he shall be examined Sunday as by no means earlier than. He shall be requested to outlive a 29-hole marathon that he by no means wished to join.
Play was as soon as once more suspended halfway by way of the third spherical. Brooks Koepka moved to 13-under to open up a four-shot lead over Jon Rahm.
Jason Day is one of the best of the Australians, tied for eighth at 4-under after seven holes of hid third spherical.
Masters leaderboard (halfway by way of third spherical)
Brooks Koepka -13
Jon Rahm -9
Sam Bennett -6
Viktor Hovland – 05
Patrick Cantlay -5
Colin Morikawa -5
Matt Fitzpatrick -5
Australians
Jason Day -4
Cameron Smith -1
Adam Scott -1
This text initially appeared within the NY Submit and was reproduced with permission.
