Tiger Woods enlisted the help of his son Charlie before carding a battling 77 in his 100th round in the Masters.
Charlie was pictured seemingly giving his dad some swing advice on the practice range at Augusta National, advice he may even have welcomed following a demoralising third round of 82.
That was the five-time champion’s worst score in the Masters by four shots and meant an early tee time on Sunday alongside Neal Shipley, the only amateur to make the cut.
Tiger Woods brought his son Charlie onto the Augusta National range this morning as his "swing coach." Looked like he had some real feedback! These pictures are awesome
📸 @ReddersGolf, Getty pic.twitter.com/pGHvtyUU5g— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) April 14, 2024
Advertisement
Woods started in style with a 360-yard drive on the par-five second to help set up a straightforward birdie, but bogeyed the third after his chip from short of the green failed to climb the steep slope and rolled back to his feet.
Worse was soon to come on the fifth as a wild drive into the trees meant Woods had to return to the tee to hit another ball and, after finding the green with his fourth shot, he compounded the error by three-putting for a triple-bogey seven.
Another bogey on the sixth and three subsequent pars took Woods to the turn in 40, the same score he opened with in 1997 before covering the back nine in 30 on his way to a 12-shot win.
It was also five shots worse than playing partner Shipley, but Woods typically refused to throw in the towel and covered the back nine in 37 with eight pars and a solitary bogey on the 15th.
“It was a good week all around,” Woods insisted.
“I think that coming in not having played a full tournament in a very long time it was a good fight Thursday and Friday, unfortunately yesterday didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted to.
“It doesn’t take much to get out of position here. Unfortunately, I got out of position a lot yesterday and a couple times today.
“Today, the round that Tom (Kim, who shot 66) is playing is what I thought I had in my system and I just didn’t produce it.”
Final countdown pic.twitter.com/2zHByCy2qp
— Fried Egg Golf (@fried_egg_golf) April 14, 2024
Woods had previously targeted playing one tournament a month this year, with the remaining majors – the US PGA, US Open and Open Championship – the obvious targets.
“This is a golf course I knew going into it so I’ve got to do my homework going forward at Pinehurst and Valhalla and Troon but that’s kind of the game plan,” Woods said.
“I heard there were some changes at the next couple of sites so I’ve got to get up there early and check them out.”
Woods finished his round an hour before the final pairing of Scottie Scheffler and Collin Morikawa were due to tee off, Scheffler having birdied the 18th in Saturday’s third round to hole a one-shot lead over the two-time major champion.
Fellow American Max Homa was two shots off the lead, with Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg another stroke back and Bryson DeChambeau four adrift of Scheffler after holing his approach to the 18th from 77 yards on Saturday for an unlikely birdie.
History suggested the winner would be one of those five players, with the last 27 winners of the green jacket being within four shots of the lead after 54 holes.
