BETHESDA, Md. — Too much too soon?
Tiger Woods never will admit it, nor should he have to — even after missing the Quicken Loans National cut by four shots Friday at Congressional Country Club.
Woods’ doctors cleared him to play a tournament for the first time, 87 days removed from back surgery. His body gave him the OK. And his mind was itching for the competition after going 108 days away from tournament competition.
What should we take from Woods’ two-day performance (74-75) that included 16 pars, 12 bogeys, a double and just seven birdies for a two-round total of 7-over par — 13 strokes worse than the tournament leaders Patrick Reed, Ricky Barnes, Marc Leishman and Oliver Goss, who are all 6-under?
He was rusty after the long layoff. Simple as that.
The words coming from Woods after his Friday round belied that of the player who used to scowl at reporters who had the audacity to ask him what his pre-tournament expectations are: “I never enter a tournament I don’t expect to win.’’
Those expectations were vastly different this week — even if Woods would not admit it.
“I hate to say it but I’m really encouraged by what happened this week,’’ Woods said. “I missed the cut by four shots. That’s a lot. But the fact that what I was able to do physically and the speed I had and distance that I was hitting the golf ball again. … I had not done that in a very long time. And to recover like I did overnight, still leery about it, [wondering] how am I going to recover … [I] felt great.
“I came back four weeks earlier than we thought I could. I had no setbacks. I got my feel for playing tournament golf. I made a ton of little, simple little mistakes, misjudging things and missing the ball on the wrong sides and just didn’t get up-and-down on little simple shots. Those are the little things I can correct, which is nice.’’
Some of Woods’ statistics were alarming — particularly related to the short game, which figured to be his strength considering it was the one area of his game he could practice most while recuperating from surgery. His 3-of-16 in scrambling was the worst performance in a tournament of his career. He made just 3-of-21 putts from longer than 10 feet and just 2-of-7 from 4-to-8 feet.
Woods’ errant short game surprised him most this week.
“The thing I was worried about most was hitting driver, and I roasted most of them the last two days, hit it really well,’’ Woods said. “The short game was off. I probably should have spent more time chipping over on the chipping green than I did, but that’s the way it goes.’’
Woods, after previous injury layoffs, has talked often about needing “more reps.’’ Yet he has no plans to play again until the British Open in three weeks. So Woods will head to Hoylake — the last place he won a British Open, in 2006 — to play this year’s Open Championship with only these two spotty rounds as his tournament competition as preparation.
More reps?
Not this time.
“I’m going to take my kids on a nice little vacation next week, and [then] start gearing up [for the British],’’ Woods said.
The missed cut was only the 10th of Woods’ professional career in 299 PGA Tour starts. It was the first since 2013 Greenbrier Classic. Before Friday, he had been on a streak of 26 consecutive cuts made.
The 7-over finish was the fourth-worst 36-hole score of Woods’ career in relation to par, after his 11-over finish at the 1998 Tour Championship, 9-over at the 2010 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow and 8-over at the 1996 Tour Championship.
Only 12 players in the field finished with worse a score than Woods.
“I knew that he really hasn’t been hitting balls very long, so it would be a weird feeling,’’ said Jordan Spieth, who played the last two rounds with Woods and shot 2-over to make the cut. “If it were anyone else I’d say I’d expect a struggle, but you never know with Tiger. He showed the brilliance he has and is capable of doing. His swing looks good. He’s not over-swinging, he’s in rhythm. He’s not far off from being right back to where he was.
“He just got a couple rounds under his belt, so I think he’s going to be a severe threat at the British — probably favorite.’’