NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Tiger Woods shot something like a 1-under 66 Saturday at Aronimink. Don’t worry I’ll explain in a minute …
• I feel like we’ve said it a lot this year – this week? – but, man, that could have been good. Tiger opened with back-to-back birdies in the third round and looked like he was going to rip apart a thoroughly soaked golf course. Instead, he followed with 11 straight pars, missing five birdie putts inside 12 feet. He circled Nos. 14 and 16 on his way into the clubhouse. Normally, a bogey-free 66 would draw rave reviews. But Saturday’s scoring average ended up at 67.1. And Tiger ended up five off the lead, exactly where he started the day.
• I would have preferred him to make those putts, but this is one of my favorite lines I’ve heard from him all season. He said he hit “probably like at least five or six putts that I thought about stepping in, and maybe I shouldn’t have jinxed it to actually go in the hole.” Does he actually think the things we joke about on Twitter?
• With respect to the putting, he spent a lot of extra time after the round yesterday on the practice green. He’s been doing gate drills all week just trying to make solid contact. You can’t say the guy isn’t grinding and working hard at it. “I was just trying to make sure that I felt comfortable and solid and I was hitting the putts square,” he said. “Spend a little time drilling it so every putt you hit flush.” Now if they would just freakin’ drop.
• So what’s he going to need to do tomorrow? He says he’s thinking 61 or 62, and that he’ll have to take a run at it “tomorrow or Monday.” Yeah, let’s talk about that …
• Aronimink took on 2 ½ inches of rain Friday night and Saturday morning, delaying the third round by 3 ½ hours. Rain is scheduled pretty much every hour for the next two days. These guys are going to attempt to go off at 7 a.m. tomorrow, but anything seems like a possibility. Could be tracking the BMW from Tuesday to Tuesday.