ESPN.com - Golf - US OPEN 2003 Columnist

Saturday, June 14

Greens foil Tiger's Open defense
By Joe Wojciechowski
ESPN.com

Tiger's scorecard

OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. -- If only that damn ball had dropped in the cup for birdie on No. 3 like it was supposed to. Maybe, just maybe, things would have been different for Tiger Woods in the third round of the U.S. Open.


	Tiger Woods had problems off the tee, which led to trouble in the rest of his game.

Instead, that Nike ball just froze there on the rim, all but dangling its swoosh over the edge and looking like a kid on a diving board trying to decide whether to jump in. Turns out, that putt was just the beginning of the end of Woods' chances to repeat as U.S. Open champion.

Barring a Sunday miracle, Tiger's 5-over 75 at Olympia Fields on Saturday will leave him without a major to call his own or defend this year.

"I didn't play that poorly, that's the funny thing," Woods said. "I hit a lot of good shots, but I made nothing. When you can't get putts in, you can't get any momentum going and it's hard to shoot a good number."

It wasn't supposed to be that way. The USGA tried to trick up the greens Saturday by triple-cutting and triple-rolling them -- usually, they're just double-cut and double-rolled, but dew settled on them in the morning, so the grounds crew went back to work.

That strategy, however, backfired ... sort of.

The greens, it turns out, were slower on Saturday, which may have messed up Woods even more than if they had been fast.

"Eduardo (Romero, Woods' playing partner) and I were talking about how slow the greens were. We couldn't hit the putts hard enough," Woods said. "Everyone said they cut the greens faster, but they're slower than they were (Friday).

"They look like they're dried out and when you're walking around with your spikes, you can feel they're firmer. I really had a hard time convincing myself to hit them hard because they look fast."

That was obvious all day. On nearly half the holes, Woods left putts short and, all in all, needed 35 putts (including two three-putts and 13 two-putts), as opposed to the 25 he took Friday when he shot a 66.

As the red numbers faded into black, Woods became more and more frustrated. There were countless stares, several stifled swears and one tree limb that went toe-to-toe with Tiger's putter as Woods walked to No. 16 following another missed putt that produced another bogey.

"What's frustrating is I couldn't get comfortable on the greens with my speed," he said. "I felt a little bit uneasy on the putts because of the speed because I couldn't figure it out.

"I'd say, 'OK, hit the ball harder,' but it's hard to hit the ball harder when they look so much faster than they're putting. It's a mental war to try to get myself to release the putter blade like I'm supposed to."

But the putter wasn't the only club to betray Woods on Saturday. He hit only nine fairways and left himself some tough outs from rough that finally started to act like U.S. Open rough. Woods also rarely gave himself a putt much under 12 or 15 feet. Sure, he hit 12 greens in regulation, but for the most part, every putt was a tough one -- and that had nothing to do with the speed (or lack of it) on the greens.

Of course, it's not easy to get rolling when some wise guy in the stands whistles right in the middle of your downswing on the first hole.

"If it was my backswing, I could have stopped it, but on my downswing, I couldn't stop it," said Woods, who also quickly added it had no effect on his poor play.

Still, as long as Tiger's playing, he'll believe there is a chance to come back.

Of course, this comeback would be of historical proportion. No one has ever come back from a 54-hole deficit of more than seven strokes at the U.S. Open. Tiger will tee off Sunday trailing Jim Furyk by 11 shots.

"I need to obviously shoot a great round of golf and get some help from the leaders," Woods said. "I've got to go out, shoot a great number and see what happens."