Tiger Woods hung in there, but needs to hit driver better, says Butch Harmon
Friday 6 April 2018 13:50, UK
Tiger Woods did well to salvage an opening one-over 73 with two late birdies at the Masters, but Butch Harmon feels he will struggle to contend if he continues to struggle with his driver.
As well as Tiger has played over the last few weeks, he's been able to use his driver sparingly and get away with hitting a lot of irons off the tee. And when he did use driver, he generally missed the fairway.
At Augusta National, you cannot hit many irons off the tee. You have to hit more drivers and three-woods here to contend, and you've got to take advantage of your driver if it is firing.
Tiger's round looked like getting away from him when he put his ball in the water at the 12th, but he made a very good bogey there from 15 feet.
But he couldn't take advantage of 13 or 15 because of two more bad drives, although the birdies at the 14th and 16th were crucial to his chances this week.
At three over par after 12 holes, you feared he would shoot a big number. But to get in at one over, only seven off the lead in a bunched leaderboard, that was pretty impressive.
Obviously he would have liked to have been a couple of shots better, but to finish the way he did gives him some momentum to take into the next round.
First tee struggles
It's interesting that his opening tee shot with a three-wood ended in the trees on the left, because he's hit it in there many times in his career - especially in the first round. There's clearly something about that tee shot that doesn't sit well with him whether he's hitting driver or three-wood.
But most of his drives leaked right over the course of the round, so, knowing Tiger, he'll be working hard on the range ahead of his late tee time on Friday to correct that.
The key is that Tiger didn't not shoot himself out of the tournament. The Masters is not a sprint, and he will know he's got 54 holes left to climb the leaderboard.
As for his chances of winning, he'll be looking to make the cut first and foremost, and if he gets to the weekend he'll be in good shape.
Tiger knows Augusta better than anyone, and he will be confident that, if he's teeing it up on Saturday, he can make a run at it. It's sure going to be fun to watch.
