DUBLIN, Ohio — It has come to this for Tiger Woods, the man who not long ago appeared on a fast track to obliterating every record golf has ever known: He appears to have competitive stage fright.
Despite his 79 career wins, including 14 major championships, Woods — like so many of the rest of us mere mortals — cannot bring his game from the practice range to the first tee.
Woods continues to look like the 14-time major champion he is while playing pro-ams and practice rounds these days and, when he steps to the first tee for his opening rounds, he plays like a jittery 12-handicapper locked into a $20 Nassau.
One day after gliding effortlessly around Muirfield in Wednesday’s pro-am, hitting all the shots and looking relaxed doing it, there was Woods at 8:15 Thursday morning at the Memorial pumping his opening tee shot on No. 10 well left of the fairway and taking bogey.
Woods bogeyed three of his first four holes, with his misses off the tee indiscriminate — one left, the next right and the next one wherever. He blew his tee shot so far right off the 18th tee (his ninth hole) that it went out of bounds. Some who attend the tournament annually said they didn’t even know there was out of bounds to the right of No. 18.
The double bogey left Woods with a 4-over-par 40 on his opening nine holes and leaving many to wonder if he’d even be around to play the weekend at a tournament he’s already won five times in his career.
To his credit, Woods rallied on his back nine, shooting 3-under, and somehow salvaged a 1-over-par 73. But even on his final nine holes, his game was frightful at times. He missed 10-of-14 fairways and 9-of-18 greens in the round.
On No. 5, after Woods tugged his tee shot into trees to the left of the fairway, a man watching from outside the ropes said to his friend: “I’ve been coming to this tournament for 10 years and I ain’t never seen anyone over there before.’’
���And,’’ the man added, exasperated, “he hit 3-wood!’’
The 73 was Woods’ highest opening-round score at the Memorial since he shot 74 in 2002.
“I didn’t play very good at all,” Woods said. “I just didn’t have it. I just grinded. I didn’t really have much.’’
Asked what was on his mind after the double bogey on 18, Woods said, “I hit it awful, yeah. So what? I was going to go through this phase [with swing coach Chris Como] and stick with it, keep sticking with it.’’
Here’s the problem, though: Woods really isn’t “sticking with it’’ by playing so few tournaments. If he’s ever going to extricate himself from this haze of inconsistency, he needs to play more tournaments.
The Memorial is only Woods’ fifth tournament of the year and first in a month, dating back to the Players Championship. It’s only his second event since the Masters in April. And this inactivity comes after he took nine weeks off to rehab his ailing back.
When asked after his round why he doesn’t add an event or two to his schedule to get himself more tournament sharp, he said, “I am. Look at my schedule. There will be a lot more coming up.’’
But Woods has added only one event to his schedule, the Greenbrier Classic the first week of July.
Asked if he thinks the lack of tournament play has contributed to his inconsistency, he said, “There’s no doubt about it.’’
There is another negative effect of Woods not playing more events: He’s so far down the FedEx Cup points list (198th) that, unless he has some top finishes, he’ll find himself in jeopardy of not qualifying for the FedEx Cup series of four events in August and September.
As it stands, his world ranking has plummeted to an unimaginable 172nd, which has him miles from being eligible to qualify for August’s WGC-Bridgestone, which he’s won four times.
It’s as if Woods is waiting for his form to magically reappear. And maybe it will. If it doesn’t though, he’ll have only himself to blame for not doing enough to change his fortune by playing more tournament golf.