FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Tiger Woods finished his first round at theUnited States Open on Friday, 26 hours 51 minutes after he teed off, then talked about having a little cleanup to do.It was a familiar refrain on a day when the skies remained dry but the Bethpage Black course was a mudder’s track. Woods, a three-time Open champion, is considered a horse for any course, but his round of 74 got messy at the finish.
He was even par when he stood at the tee at No. 15 but played the last four holes in four over. Only once, in 2006, has Woods posted a higher number in the first round of this tournament.
“It’s not like I was hitting it all over the place.” Woods said. “I was hitting good shots.” He added, “Unfortunately I didn’t finish off the round the way I needed to.”
His day began at the seventh green, where he missed a 10-foot putt for par. To be sure, it was not an easy opening stroke, but over the years Woods, 33, has been a magician at turning would-be bogeys into pars.
Earlier this year, Greg Norman described Woods as “the best clutch putter I’ve ever seen in the game of golf,” and added, “Outside nine feet, Woods is by far the best.”
When Woods drained a 12-foot putt for par at the 10th hole to stay at plus-2, it appeared to be the start of something good. He birdied the par-4 11th and 14th and was just one shot off the early lead when he made his way to No. 15, a 459-yard par 4.
The tee box was more crowded than the office water cooler. The group ahead of his, which featured Robert Allenby, Justin Leonard and Ian Poulter, had yet to hit. After a wait of over 10 minutes, Woods, who was paired with Ángel Cabrera and Padraig Harrington, hit his drive into the secondary rough on the right.
His second shot plugged in the deep grass surrounding a right greenside bunker. He was able to take a drop but had to hit his third shot off a severe side-hill lie. The ball landed on the green but Woods blocked the par putt and missed a two-footer coming back.
It was his second double-bogey in two days. He took a 6 at No. 5 on Thursday. In the first round of the 2008 Open at Torrey Pines, Woods also made two double-bogeys, but it did not preclude him from winning his 14th major, in a 19-hole playoff with Rocco Mediate.
Woods knows that if he wants to contend here, he has to make the putts he missed Friday, none more so than his gimme (for him) par efforts at Nos. 16 and 18.
The United States Golf Association holds certain truths to be self-evident, and one of them is that there is no place at the Open for the lift, clean and place practice. So despite the muddy conditions, the golfers had to play the ball as it was. Woods said he hit four balls Friday that were caked in mud.
“It’s potluck,” he said.
Not that he was complaining. “Everyone has to play the same conditions,” said Woods, who praised the maintenance crew for its overnight efforts in wringing the course of Thursday’s rainwater.
“It looked great,” he said, adding, “I’m sure they worked all night to try to get this golf course playable, and it was great out there.”
It was shortly before 11 a.m. when Woods putted out at 18. He had the rest of the day off. His second round is scheduled for Saturday, ahem, weather permitting.
Asked if he wished to be starting his second round later Friday, as other golfers were, Woods smiled and said: “As of the way I feel right now, no, I don’t want to go back out there right now. I’d probably be a few clubs light.”
He will carry a few strokes more than he wanted to into the second round. But Woods, who won the Open when it was held here in 2002, kept his postround banter light. “I was right there where I needed to be,” he said, “and two bad shots and a mud ball later, here we go and I’m at four over par.
“Just continue to do what I’m doing and just hopefully clean up the round a little bit, maybe tomorrow, hopefully, drive the ball in the fairway and get a couple of breaks and not catch ’em, but we’ll see what happens.”
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