Following an opening-round even-par 72 that saw him battle back from 4-over par at one point, Tiger Woods made his move up the leaderboard on Friday at the Memorial Tournament. Despite an opening bogey, Tiger was able to play the outgoing nine holes in 3-under par 33 and turned to the back side at Jack Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village Golf Club looking to attack.
Woods hit a solid approach to the par-4 10th, but missed the 12-foot birdie putt. Needing to take advantage of the par-5 11th, Woods pushed his drive right and forced a layup to 95 yards, then this happened…
When Woods hits a shot like that and gets on a run like the one he was making, other players take notice, as evidenced by Justin Thomas’ reaction from the tee of the 12th hole, which overlooks the 11th fairway.
You can’t help but smile.
JT’s reaction says it all. ? pic.twitter.com/6TyjiVHvNI
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 1, 2018
Woods, always one with a flair for the dramatic, followed up the eagle with an absolute dart on the par-3 12th hole that hit the flag as it came down, leaving him just inside six feet for birdie.
Despite Woods’ charge, Mother Nature doesn’t bend the knee to anyone. A storm cell encapsulated Muirfield Village and Woods was forced to wait over an hour to hit his putt, which he pulled and missed. He missed another short birdie putt on the 13th hole, but made an unlikely birdie on the par-5 15th.
6-under today (so far).@TigerWoods has the round of the day going.#LiveUnderPar pic.twitter.com/ZiBaKzwuMv
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 1, 2018
Woods again threw a dart on the par-3 16th, but failed to convert the chance. A slip up on the par-4 17th resulted in a dropped shot and Woods posted a 5-under par 67 that could have easily been 3-4 strokes better as he missed five putts inside eight feet.
“I missed a lot of short putts, which is, you know, something I don’t normally do,” Woods said. “Which is frustrating. I’ve got to clean that up come this weekend, and hopefully I can get it going and I can play well like this on the weekend and I’ve got a great chance of winning the tournament.”
Woods enters the weekend squarely in contention six shots back of Kyle Stanley and Joaquin Niemann.
