On a tough day at Firestone Country Club for the third round of the 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, Tiger Woods faded with a 3-over 73 that included just one birdie and tumbled him down the leaderboard as a result. He's now double digits back of the leaders and outside the top 25 with pretty much no shot at win No. 9 at this tournament.
So what went wrong for Woods on a Saturday when the average score in this elite field hovered above par? Well, it's more like, "what went right?" Woods lost strokes in every category you could lose strokes in, and hitting just nine greens in regulation led to four bogeys on a day when he needed to make a big move.
And from the "when it rains, it pours" files, Woods hit the pin on No. 18 and watched helplessly as his ball bounded away from the hole and led to one last let-down par to end the day. It was a fitting end to an incredibly disappointing day for Big Cat.
Today was Tiger's 58th career PGA Tour round at Firestone. His 1 birdie tied his career-low in any round here (done 2 previous times). In contrast, Woods has 21 career rounds here with 5+ birdies/eagles.
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGC) August 4, 2018
His 73 was the reverse of a recent trend of awesome Saturdays for Woods in his past few tournaments. Woods had shot 68 or better in five straight events (including The Open two weeks ago) and came into the day leading the PGA Tour in Round 3 scoring average.
It was the first time this year Woods has played a third round over par.
So now Woods will likely use Sunday for PGA Championship preparation next week. He's way too far back to truly contend over the final round with far too many great golfers in front of him. It has been the story of Woods' season. Two steps forward, one step back. Woods held his game together over the first two rounds before self-sabotaging with so many poor approach shots that led to bogey on Saturday.
I'm not sure that even Woods expected something heroically low on Saturday -- like a 62 to get in the mix -- but certainly he (and most people) did not expect this: one of the 10 worst scores of the day at Firestone, even on a tough day.
Woods has only finished outside the top four three times in the 14 times he has completed this event, and one of those was a T8. That's likely where he'll end up this year, though, even with a terrific score on Sunday after being upended by a tougher course and some poor ball-striking in Round 3 at Firestone.
