{"id":28751,"date":"2022-04-07T20:14:18","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T20:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/tiger-three-off-the-lead-after-first-9-holes-at-augusta"},"modified":"2022-04-07T20:14:18","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T20:14:18","slug":"tiger-three-off-the-lead-after-first-9-holes-at-augusta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/tiger-three-off-the-lead-after-first-9-holes-at-augusta","title":{"rendered":"Tiger three off the lead after first 9 holes at Augusta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Tiger Woods was three adrift through nine holes on Thursday<\/p>\n

in his unlikely quest for a record-equalling sixth Masters title, 14 months<\/p>\n

after a car crash left him with injuries so severe he feared he might lose a<\/p>\n

leg.<\/p>\n

The 46-year-old, who has fallen to 973rd in the world<\/p>\n

rankings, said this week he thought his game was good enough to win a 16th<\/p>\n

major championship.<\/p>\n

But he acknowledged his surgically repaired leg was an<\/p>\n

unknown quantity heading into his first top-flight competitive round in 17<\/p>\n

months on the hilly, 7,510-yard Augusta National course.<\/p>\n

“You know, 72 holes is a long road, and it’s going to<\/p>\n

be a tough challenge and a challenge that I’m up for,” Woods said days<\/p>\n

before the tournament.<\/p>\n

Woods cut a vibrant figure in a hot pink shirt and black<\/p>\n

trousers — all the better for the thousands of Augusta patrons keen to get a<\/p>\n

glimpse of him to track their hero.<\/p>\n

A 30-minute delay to the start because of pre-dawn<\/p>\n

thunderstorms only intensified the anticipation for Woods’s appearance on the<\/p>\n

first tee, where he was greeted with rapturous applause.<\/p>\n

Woods wasn’t delighted with his opening drive, which came up<\/p>\n

short of the righthand fairway bunker. His approach trickled off the green, but<\/p>\n

he drained a 10-foot par-saving putt.<\/p>\n

He opened with five straight pars, his approach at the fifth<\/p>\n

to 15 feet prompting a big smile for caddie Joe LaCava before Woods’s birdie<\/p>\n

putt lipped out.<\/p>\n

But Woods followed with his first birdie of the day at the<\/p>\n

par-three sixth, where he landed his tee shot two feet from the pin.<\/p>\n

He was in the trees lining the right side of the fairway at<\/p>\n

the seventh but saved par, but he gave back a shot at the eighth despite<\/p>\n

finding the fairway at the par-five.<\/p>\n

After a lengthy wait to hit into the green, Woods came up<\/p>\n

short. His third shot also failed to reach the green, and he could not make a<\/p>\n

par-saving nine-foot putt fall.<\/p>\n

Woods was left off the tee on the way to a par at the ninth,<\/p>\n

where 23-year-old playing partner Joaquin Niemann — who wasn’t born when Woods<\/p>\n

won his first Masters title in 1997 — holed out for eagle to seize the early<\/p>\n

lead on three-under-par.<\/p>\n

Australian Cameron Smith, Charl Schwartzel and English<\/p>\n

veteran Lee Westwood were two-under in the early going.<\/p>\n

Niemann is among a raft of young golfers whose careers were<\/p>\n

shaped by Woods’s influence.<\/p>\n

Scottie Scheffler, 25, arrived at Augusta ranked number one<\/p>\n

in the world after winning his first three US PGA Tour titles in the space of<\/p>\n

two months.<\/p>\n

Spain’s US Open champion Jon Rahm, 27, can regain the number<\/p>\n

one ranking he ceded to Scheffler with a first Masters victory, one of five<\/p>\n

players who can supplant the American this week along with reigning British<\/p>\n

Open champion Collin Morikawa, FedEx Cup champion Patrick Cantlay, rising<\/p>\n

Norwegian star Viktor Hovland and Smith.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland’s four-time major winner, Rory McIlroy,<\/p>\n

will be trying for the eighth time to complete a career Grand Slam with a<\/p>\n

Masters victory while defending champion Hideki Matsuyama of Japan was even<\/p>\n

through eight holes.<\/p>\n

– How many comebacks? –<\/p>\n

But all the focus was on Woods and whether he could pull off<\/p>\n

the most miraculous comeback yet in a career marked as much by his gritty<\/p>\n

determination to defy pain as by his sublime skill.<\/p>\n

Woods won the 2008 US Open with a broken leg, then battled<\/p>\n

through five back surgeries, including a spinal fusion, before he won his 15th<\/p>\n

major title at the 2019 Masters.<\/p>\n

“I mean, how many comebacks has he had?” former<\/p>\n

Masters champion Jordan Spieth marvelled.<\/p>\n

Should he defy the odds and match Jack Nicklaus’s record of<\/p>\n

six green jackets, Woods would become the third-oldest major winner in history<\/p>\n

and would surpass Nicklaus as the oldest Masters winner by a matter of weeks.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About South-Africa<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. Tiger Woods was three adrift through nine holes on Thursday in his unlikely quest for a record-equalling sixth Masters title, 14 months after a car crash left him with injuries so severe he feared he might lose a leg. The 46-year-old, who has fallen to 973rd in the world rankings, said this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":28750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17],"tags":[274,315,520,1351,1349,275,1350],"class_list":["post-28751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-golf","tag-masters-2022","tag-pga-tour","tag-south-africa-2","tag-tiger-woods"],"yoast_head":"\nTiger three off the lead after first 9 holes at Augusta - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/tiger-three-off-the-lead-after-first-9-holes-at-augusta\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tiger three off the lead after first 9 holes at Augusta\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press – South-Africa. Tiger Woods was three adrift through nine holes on Thursday in his unlikely quest for a record-equalling sixth Masters title, 14 months after a car crash left him with injuries so severe he feared he might lose a leg. 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