Tiger Woods ends Players with 72 for worst-ever four-round performance
Tiger Woods just completed back-to-back 72-hole PGA Tour tournaments for the first time since the end of the 2013 season. That's the good news.
The bad news is that he followed up an encouraging T-17 performance at the Masters with his worst-ever 72-hole effort at The Players Championship. Woods closed with even-par 72 on Sunday at TPC Sawgrass to finish at 3-over 291 for the week. His T-69 finish is his worst in the event. He's never missed the cut, but has withdrawn twice.
However, this isn't Woods' worst 72-hole score in the championship. Woods shot 5-over 293 in 2005, back when The Players was contested in March. That year, Woods won two majors.
There were certainly signs that the 14-time major champion was finding his game again. He is among the leaders this week in birdies made.
Unfortunately, he sprinkled in way more holes over par, including a triple-bogey 7 on the 14th hole on Sunday. That's the first time he's ever made a triple-box on the card in 16 appearances. That follows two par-5 double bogeys on Saturday, another first in his PGA Tour career.
"It was a mixed bag, pretty much all week," said Woods. "A lot of really, really good stuff out there, some mediocre and some bad. What did I have? Three 7s on the week. That's not very good."
Until the 14th, Woods' round looked good. He was 3 under on the day before he came to the tee. However, his tee shot found a water hazard to the left of the fairway, requiring a drop in the next tee box up and a penalty stroke. From there, Woods missed the fairway and green, then couldn't get up-and-down for double-bogey 6.
As Woods said at the start of the week, if a player doesn't have their game together, breaking par on the Pete Dye masterpiece is almost impossible.
"You can be going along, playing fine, all of a sudden make a double here and it's like, 'What just happened,'" Woods said.
In particular, the weekends have not been friendly to Woods in recent years, and that string continued this weekend. Woods hasn't closed an official PGA Tour event with an under-par round since the 2013 Tour Championship.
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
