Sport
Tiger Woods draws attention at Pebble Beach
He was starting to warm up. He stopped for a winter break.
And then in Abu Dhabi, while he didn’t win, he was right back where he left off, contending.
“I think that’s what’s exciting,” Woods said. “Because before …. I didn’t go into those breaks feeling good about where my game was. I was still making changes, still trying to get healthy. It was never really there. This time was different. I went into it healthy, went into it playing well, and then was able to build on it over the break.
“Took two weeks off after the World Challenge, didn’t touch a club, and then after that got right back into it and boom, almost won a tournament,” he said. “So things are progressing.”
His last time at Pebble Beach was for the 2010 U.S. Open, when he made a late charge Saturday afternoon to pull within five shots and get into the second-to-last group. He bogeyed five of the opening 10 holes, shot 75 and was never a factor.
This tournament is different.
Woods stopped playing the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am for a number of reasons—Poppy Hills (since replaced by the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula), the six-hour rounds (the field has since been reduced from 180 players to 156) and bumpy greens from so much play that he felt it affected confidence in his putting stroke.
Except for that amazing comeback in 2000, Woods had only one other close call. That was in 1997, when he finished one shot behind Mark O’Meara.
