Sport
Tiger Woods bounces back from shaky start at British Open
“I felt good about a lot of things I did out there,” said Woods, who played the back nine in 4-under 33. “Especially coming back after that start I had today, to fight myself back into the championship. I feel pretty good about it.”
The conditions were a far cry from 2006, when he won on dry, fiery course that made the grass more brown than green. This time, Royal Liverpool was lush and relatively soft after intermittent rain on Wednesday.
Woods returned to action 3 weeks ago at Congressional, but missed the cut. It looked as though he might be headed to a similar fate when his second shot of the day settled in one of the treacherous pot bunkers, leading to bogey. At No. 2, he knocked a long putt about 6 feet past the hole, then missed the comebacker to take his score to 2 over.
He took advantage of the only par-5 on the front side for his first birdie. But it was that long birdie at the 11th that seemed to spark his round, the first of three straight birdies. After another bogey at the 14th, set up by an errant tee shot into the hay, Woods made two more birdies.
Woods was No. 1 when he took three months off to heal his back. Now he’s seventh.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press
