Sports

Tiger, Rory flame out at U.S. Open

It’s been five years since Tiger Woods captured his most recent major championship, the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, which he won on a broken leg.

It’s been five years since Tiger Woods captured his most recent major championship, the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, which he won on a broken leg. (Getty Images)

ARDMORE, Pa. — Another major has come and gone, and Tiger Woods continues to be stuck at 14.

Yesterday at Merion Golf Club, the 113th playing of the U.S. Open came to an inglorious end for the world’s No. 1 player, a final-round 4-over 74, finishing Woods’ tournament at 13-over, tied for 32nd place.

It marked Woods’ worst 72-hole score as a pro in the Open, and tied his highest score in any major as a pro.

“There’s always a lesson to be learned in every tournament whether you win or lose,” Woods said before walking out into a van with his girlfriend, skier Lindsey Vonn. “I’ll look back at the things I did right and the things I did wrong.”

It’s been five years since Woods captured his most recent major championship, the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, which he won on a broken leg. He came into this Open an odds-on favorite, having won four times already this year.

But he faltered on and around the greens where he faltered, continuing to blame his putter for the opportunity that passed him by.

“I struggled with the speed all week,” he said about his putting. “Especially right around the hole, putts were breaking a lot more. I gave it a little more break, and then it would hang. That’s kind of the way it was this week.”

The rest of Woods’ game seemed to be rather solid, as he finished near the top 20 in both fairways hit (69.6 percent) and greens in regulation (65.2). But there are no gimmes at the U.S. Open, and the three-time champ knows that as well as anyone.

“I did a lot of things right,” Woods said. “Unfortunately I did a few things wrong, as well.”

Woods played the first two days in a group with the other two top-ranked players, No. 2 Rory McIlroy and No. 3 Adam Scott, both of whom struggled mightily, as well. McIlroy shot a sloppy 76 yesterday to finish at 14-over for the tournament, while Scott shot 75 and finished 15-over.

“Everyone hits bad shots, but mine are just costing me too much at the minute,” McIlroy said. “I’m seeing plenty of good shots out there, and sometimes at the U.S. Open good shots don’t get rewarded like at other places. But that’s fine. But the bad ones just need to come in a little bit.”

McIlroy was undone when he made a quadruple-bogey 8 at the short par-4 11th hole. He hit his drive in Cobbs Creek, then dunked his fourth shot as well. Frustration boiled over for the normally even-keeled 24-year-old Northern Irishman, and he leaned all his weight on his wedge and bent the shaft.

“What you don’t want to do as a golfer is follow one mistake with another, and that’s what I did,” McIlroy said. “And obviously I got a bit frustrated there.”

McIlroy also said he thought Scott played the best of the three over the opening two rounds, but he was the one with the worst score. After making the cut on the number at 8-over, Scott continued to struggle to score over the weekend, and that might have been as much a product of the golf course as his play.

“I think [shooting lower] would have been probably more enjoyable for us,” Scott said, “but I don’t know if that’s the mantra of the U.S. Open, making it enjoyable.”