Tiger Woods’ hopes of a victorious return from career-threatening accidents evaporated on Augusta Nationwide’s greens on Saturday whereas Scottie Scheffler seized a three-stroke Masters lead. Woods, 14 months faraway from a automobile crash that left him with accidents so extreme he feared he may lose his proper leg, noticed his hopes of a shocking comeback for a sixth inexperienced jacket come undone along with his worst-ever Masters spherical, a six-over par 78. The truth that the 46-year-old was even capable of tee it up — and make a twenty second consecutive Masters reduce — was astonishing.
However at 9 off Scheffler’s result in begin the day, Woods knew he wanted one thing sensational to present himself an opportunity come Sunday, and as a substitute he posted a spherical worse than the third-round 77 he shot in his 1996 debut as an novice.
“It is similar to I hit a thousand putts on the market on the greens at this time,” mentioned Woods, whose prior mastery of the unforgiving, undulating greens of Augusta helped him to 5 Masters titles.
“I felt like I did not actually hit it that unhealthy, however I had 4 three-putts and a four-putt,” Woods mentioned. “I simply couldn’t get a really feel.”
Woods’s seven-over par complete of 223 put him 16 strokes behind Scheffler, who survived drama on the 18th to card a one-under par 71 for a nine-under complete of 207.
The 25-year-old Texan takes a three-shot lead over Australian Cameron Smith into the ultimate spherical.
On a chilly, windy day the place scores soared, Smith carded the one spherical within the 60s with a four-under par 68 for 210.
Smith was two strokes in entrance of third-place South Korean Im Sung-jae, who shot a one-under 71.
However, as soon as once more, it was Woods who drew the highlight.
A 3-putt on the opening gap proved a harbinger, a birdie on the second — the place his shot out of a greenside bunker barely missed discovering the cup for eagle — proving solely a brief respite.
From the golf green on the fifth, Woods left himself 65 toes, and he might solely watch in disbelief as his three-foot bogey effort circled the cup and stayed up.
Bogeys on the ninth and eleventh adopted earlier than he drained a 14-foot birdie on the twelfth and two-putted from 27 toes for birdie on the par-five thirteenth.
The hundreds following Woods’s each transfer tried to will him on, cheering and shouting encouragement at each gap, however he closed his spherical with bogeys at 16 and 17 and one other double-bogey on the final.
Whereas Woods acknowledged on Thursday that simply making via his first aggressive spherical in 17 months was a victory of types, he made it clear he can be in search of higher issues on Sunday, like getting himself again to even par.
Woods was hardly the one one struggling within the chilly, blustery situations, the place the scoring common was 74.5 pictures and solely seven gamers have been underneath par for the match after 54 holes.
Eire’s 2019 British Open champion Shane Lowry and 2011 Masters winner Charl Schwartzel each carded one-over par 73s to share fourth place on two-under 214.
Scheffler shrub drama
Scheffler was 10-under via 17 holes when his tee shot at 18 clipped a tree department and ended up in dense undergrowth left of the golf green.
It took a concerted search to search out his ball and after wading into the bushes to see the state of affairs he took and unplayable lie, belted a shot as much as the inexperienced and restricted the harm to a bogey.
“We noticed the man who all the time finds the balls sort of panicking. I believed, ‘Oh crap,'” Scheffler mentioned.
“Simply getting it out of the bush and attempting to make my 5 was key,” added Scheffler who mentioned his coronary heart price “went up once they could not discover the ball nevertheless it went again down once they discovered it.”
It was a dramatic finish to a spherical that featured half a dozen birdies and 5 bogeys, Scheffler sustaining his air of methodical calm all through.
“You hate bogeying the final gap, however the best way I bogeyed it, it for positive felt like a par,” Scheffler mentioned. “Positively an excellent end to the day.”
Smith completed tied for second behind Dustin Johnson in 2020, when he turned the one participant to shoot 4 rounds within the 60s on the Masters.
The Aussie mentioned taking part in inside himself within the difficult situations was the important thing to his spherical.
“I did not attempt to smash any drivers off the tee. I simply tried to present myself alternatives,” mentioned Smith, who added the hardest a part of the day for him was “protecting my palms heat.”
“It was brutal. I believe off the tee with this west wind there’s not many holes you get straight downwind or straight into the wind.
“You get a lot of crosswinds and may get fairly difficult into the greens and hitting totally different shapes and attempting to guage the wind as properly.”
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