Sport
Tiger Woods off to a solid start at Pebble Beach
“Hopefully, in the next two days I can get it going,” he said.
Johnson is turning into his generation’s “Prince of Pebble.” He won the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in consecutive years, and then had a three-shot lead at Pebble in the U.S. Open two years ago until he shot 82 in the final round. On the third hole of that round, he hit driver left into the bushes for a lost ball and made double bogey.
On Thursday, he smashed a driver nearly 340 yards over the trees to just short of the green, setting up eagle. Even now, he still thinks about that tee shot in the U.S. Open. Walking off the tee, he said to caddie Bobby Brown, “I could have used that in the U.S. Open.”
“Walking off that hole, I told Bob, ‘This hole owes me a few more than just that one.'”
Johnson overpowered the par 5s at Pebble Beach, the secret to playing that course well. He had a 6-iron for his second shot at the par-5 second for an easy birdie, holed a 65-foot eagle putt on the sixth hole, got up and down from the bunker just short of the 14th for birdie, then cringed when his 40-foot eagle attempt on the 18th just turned away.
“I thought it was going in,” Johnson said. “I was laughing. I made plenty of putts today.”
Hunter Mahan, who went from San Diego to Qatar to Pebble Beach, opened with a 65. Phil Mickelson had a 70.
Woods is part of the celebrity rotation, which was at Spyglass Hill. He is on the opposite side of the course from the actors and athletes who command big crowds and lots of cameras, though his gallery was still among the biggest.
He treated them to golf they expected to see from Woods, who has not been at this event in 10 years. He opened on No. 10 by stuffing his approach to tap-in range, and then had a 15-foot eagle putt that he narrowly missed on the next hole.
