Three back, Woods is still in it

    Saturday, September 8, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Indiana

    Tiger Woods’ golf weekends have, with three exceptions, been woeful this year.
    He won those three times.
    Woods is at 13-under-par 203 and three strokes behind co-leaders Vijay Singh with a round to play at Crooked Stick Golf Club.
    What will Sunday bring? Does he have one good round in him?
    “You would think,” Woods said after his 1-under-par 71. “I’m just trying to scrape it around out there. I’m just waiting for that one good ball-striking day, and with the way I’m chipping and putting right now, it can be done. I just need to do it.”
    Woods has struck only 79 putts in three rounds, and just 26 on Saturday, because he hit only nine greens in regulation. He has scrambled with alacrity.
    That’s good. But he also had five 5s on his card in that 71, including a pair on back-to-back bogeys on the front nine. That’s why the pitch-in birdie from a nasty lie and stance on the par-5 ninth, immediately following those bogeys, pleased him so.
    “I needed to get back in the tournament,” Woods said. “I hit it about 30 yards left of where I wanted to hit it, then all of a sudden I had an impossible shot, just trying to get it anywhere around for a putt, and a drew a nice lie and chipped it in.”
    Earlier, he had a not-so-nice lie, the ball on a severe sidehill below his feet, which bothered his often-operated on left knee hurts when you played the shot. (He flinched after tee shots on the seventh and ninth, but took a pain pill and was fine thereafter, or so it appeared.)

    So the chip on 9 goes in, Woods salvages a front nine 38, then birdies the 10th, 11th and 13th on the back nine, parring the rest of the holes.
    “I grinded hard,” Woods said. “I probably have to shoot 63 or 64 tomorrow to have a chance.”
    Woods can do that. He has a 62 and two 63s on his Western Open / BMW Championship ledger, one reason why he’s tied with Walter Hagen for the lead in tournament titles with five.

    Department of crazy numbers

    Phil Mickelson’s 10-birdie day was astonishing, but not unusual for him. Mickelson has done that three other times this season and six other times in his career.
    The scoring average for the day was well under par again, 70.771 on the par-72 course, which was set up as a 7,343-yard test on Saturday. That was 1.229 strokes under par, the eighth-lowest round in relation to par in Western Open history. Of course, Thursday and Friday rank first and second by a wide margin.
    The 15th hole, a 507-yard par 5 on Saturday, has settled in as the pushover hole. It played to 4.4 strokes in round three, less than the dogleg par-4 14th, which, at 4.457 strokes, was Saturday’s toughest hole. Those rankings also reflect the week’s play.
    
    Two-by-two tomorrow

    The regular weekend plan for pairings will be in effect on Sunday, with twosomes beginning at 8:05 a.m. ET with William McGirt and Hunter Mahan, whose 8-over 80 on Saturday is the highest score of the three days. Co-leaders Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson start at 1:45 p.m. ET.

    Around Crooked Stick

    Tee times were delayed until noon because of the overnight rains, the severity of which dumped more than 1.5 inches of rain in this tony suburb of Indianapolis in about an hour during the peak of Friday’s severe thunderstorm. The total at the course was 2.94 inches (while downtown Carmel, about a mile to the east, had 2.60 inches), that added to the quarter-inch received on Wednesday and the 2 inches of last weekend. And to think there was a drought in central Indiana from May to late August, and a 66-day stretch without rain. ... The Illinois contingent isn’t lighting it up. Mark Wilson is at 2-over 218, D.A. Points stands at 3-under 213, and Luke Donald, the Land of Lincoln’s England-born Ryder Cupper, is at 6-under 210, 10 strokes behind. ... Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, site of next year’s Western / BMW, is hosting the U.S. Mid-Amateur, a USGA production. Stroke play qualifying is Saturday and Sunday, with the low 64 continuing to match play. The 36-hole final is on Thursday. Admission is free throughout.
    – Tim Cronin