Tiger Woods salutes a 'great week' despite final-day struggle at Albany
Sunday 4 December 2016 21:37, UK
Tiger Woods was delighted to get 72 holes of tournament golf under his belt for the first time since August last year, despite enduring a torrid final round at the Hero World Challenge.
Woods, who was within two shots of the lead after five holes of his third round, closed with a four-over 76 to finish 15th of the remaining 17 competitors on four-under par.
The tournament host opened his final round with four pars, but consistency deserted him for the rest of the day as he carded five birdies, three bogeys and three double-bogeys - including two sevens at the par-five sixth and 11th holes.
After missing a good chance for birdie at the fourth, Woods failed to get up and down from sand at the next before getting into all sorts of trouble at six, where he pulled his second into a sandy waste-area and skulled his escape before chipping from the 13th green.
He took two putts to get down, but he produced an encouraging response as he holed from 20 feet for birdie at seven, which he followed with a 30-footer for another gain at the next.
Woods chipped to tap-in range at the long ninth to get back to level for the day, but he slipped back into the black when he bogeyed the 10th and he then went from sand to rough at 11 and ran up another scrappy seven.
The 40-year-old looked fatigued as he missed from three feet for par at the 12th, but he got back on track when he converted a precise second to close range at 14 and he picked up another birdie at the long 15th.
But having already double-bogeyed the closing hole twice over the first three days, Woods made it a hat-trick of sixes at 18 after a wild tee shot into the scrub forced him to take a penalty drop.
"I think it was a great week, to be back playing again and competing, playing against the best players in the world," Woods said afterwards. "Unfortunately I made a lot of mistakes this week, made a lot of birdies but a lot of mistakes.
"I made some poor decisions, missed the ball in the wrong spots and quite frankly it feels a little weird not to play in a cart. So it's a little different and I am getting used to that, getting my legs back and getting my body back, focusing for a long period of time. And these are all things that I have missed for about a year and a half.
"I made the most birdies this week, which is nice, but also I made some bad mistakes.It adds up to a pretty high number but I made some nice putts out there."
