Woods Game Continues To Lack Bite In Posting Lackluster Phoenix Open 73.

If the first round of the Phoenix Open is any indication than Tiger Woods seems no closer to finding the form that earned him 14 Major Championships.

After finishing tail of the field in his last event, his own Hero World Challenge, Woods was four over par after a similar number of holes on the TPC Scottsdale course before ending with a two over par 73.

It left the current World No. 47 trailing nine shots behind fellow American Ryan Palmer when impending darkness halted play, and with Woods two shots outside the expected cut off mark of level par.

However there was one sign of brilliance when Woods eagled the par five, 13th after hitting his 226-yard second shot to just seven inches for the easiest of tap-in’s.

As well, Woods already has the driver working to be eighth overall in driving distance, and with a best drive on day one of 318.6 yards but then his second shot play was below his best in managing to hit five of 14 fairways.

Tiger Woods shows his frustration on day one of the Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale.  (Photo - www.pgatour.com)

Tiger Woods shows his frustration on day one of the Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Photo – www.pgatour.com)

“I got into the flow of the round, but it was just about trying to be so committed to the swing change and do it,” said Woods.

“I have been through it before. It’s not the first time I have gone through this. It takes time.”

Woods didn’t hesitate to hit driver Thursday, using it nine times. He hit just one fairway with that club, but drove the green at 17.

He seemed reluctant to use a wedge around the greens, though, using a 4-iron and putter in lieu of a more-lofted club. When he did pitch with a wedge, there were no chunked shots like we saw at the Hero World Challenge, but he seemed to hit some chips thin, running them past the hole.

His swing plane is shallower on both his short shots and the full swing, an effect of his work with Como. The new plane caused Woods to use a new bounce on his wedges, similar to what he used in the early 2000s, he said.

“He’s just adjusting to the chipping,” said Hero World Challenge winner Jordan Speith, who played alongside Woods.

Tiger Woods hitting off the 16th Day 1 2015 Phoenix Open

Tiger Woods hitting off the 16th Day 1 2015 Phoenix Open

“But other than that, he started to really turn that around on the back nine.”

Woods also struggled with his short game when he was changing his swing under instructor Sean Foley. Both times, Woods said the problems were caused by struggles to adjust to the new “release pattern” each instructor was teaching him. He said he was much steeper with Foley.

“I’m so shallow, I pick it a lot,” Woods said. “This is a totally different release pattern, and it takes time to be committed to it, especially when you have to shape shots. … It’s going to take time to get the feel of my hands, where they need to be throughout the entire swing.”

He showed frustration after hitting a high slice some 50 yards right of the fairway at the par-5 15th and with Woods gripping the end of the club and pressing it against his lips.

When his wedge shot on that hole landed 40 feet from the hole, he recoiled and violently swung his club through the air.

Woods’ return to the par-3 16th, where he made his famous hole-in-one in the 1997 event, didn’t didn’t go as planned, either. He received a raucous ovation from the crowd when he emerged from the tunnel that leads to the tee, but had to back off his tee shot twice because of crowd noise.

However he hit his shot to 30 feet and two-putted for par. The other two players in his group, Spieth and Patrick Reed, both made birdie. Reed held his finger up to his mouth to shush the crowd, like he did at the Ryder Cup.

Woods showed little confidence in his short game Thursday after chunking multiple chips at the Hero. He seemed to be facing straightforward chip shots on Nos. 1 and 4, but used a 4-iron to hit a bump-and-runs both times, even though he wasn’t far from the green. They were the type of shots most players would instinctively grab a wedge to hit.

“Some of my shots were into the grain with tight pins, and either I’ll flop it or bump it,” Woods said.

“I chose to bump it.”

His chip shot on No. 2 ran well past the hole, and he flubbed a chip on the par-5 third hole. He also hit a seemingly simple chip shot thin on the ninth green, the ball rolling through the putting surface.

As an ultimate sign of mistrust in his chipping, he used putter when his ball lay just 15 feet short of the seventh green.

“This is my second tournament in six months,” Woods said. “I just need tournament rounds like this where I can fight through it, turn it around, grind through it and make adjustments on the fly.”

Extra reporting thanks to www.pgatour.com



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