Neither demigod nor fallen idol, Tiger Woods stalked Royal Troon yesterday with the air of a man prepared to encounter any kind of fortune. His one-under-par 70 represented a decent enough first round on a course that caused him considerable pain in the 1997 Open championship, but it gave few hints of what might be to come over the remainder of the tournament.
Almost two years since he won the last of his eight majors, Woods has become the object of curiosity not for his genius but for his vulnerability. He came to Troon this week lacking the aura of invincibility that adhered to him even when his results were starting to fall regularly far below the level he established during what we will soon be regarding as his early prime.
Yesterday's round, compiled in the company of Lee Westwood and Greg Norman, contained most of the features of Woods' recent performances. Off the tee he was slightly wayward and occasionally majestic; around the greens his short game lacked the lethal precision of old; and on the putting surface his touch was not quite good enough to compensate for the absence of real inspiration.
It was a score which could easily have been four or five shots better. But that has been the story for a long time now, and there was no evidence yesterday to suggest that this will be the weekend on which he reacquaints us with the player who once promised to dominate the game for a generation.
After Wednesday's north-westerly winds, yesterday presented a much more benign Troon. By the time Woods and his companions arrived on the 1st tee in the early afternoon, the pale skies of the morning were giving way to thin sunshine. The wind had moved around and was blowing from the west, coming off the sea, drawing the teeth of the most threatening holes on the Old course.
"Today we had ideal scoring conditions," Woods said afterwards. "The forecasters here aren't as accurate as they could be. Today was supposed to be blowing and it ended up being probably one of the best days you'll ever see in a British Open."
Nevertheless he began cautiously, with a four-iron off the 1st tee, his mild slice finding the light rough on the right of the fairway. His second shot went through the green, and a chip from 60ft gave him a 5ft putt for par. At the 2nd he hit an iron to the middle of the fairway, used a wedge to lift the ball to the front of the green, and watched a 25ft putt snag the left edge of the cup and drop to give him his first birdie of the day. Three pars followed, one of them including an excellent save from sand at the 4th.
The sun was warming the course as the trio strode up the long 6th, where Woods drove 330 yards off the tee, punched a fairway wood to the green and two-putted from 60ft for a second birdie. At the 7th, however, his sliced tee shot landed behind a scoreboard, forcing him to hit a wedge high, higher and higher yet before the ball dropped to leave him a birdie putt from 15ft. Not only did he stroke that one a yard past the hole but he failed with the return, a careless error which was clearly irritating him as he tapped in for bogey.
At the Postage Stamp, however, he was back to two under after a beautiful tee shot pitched pin-high, bounced once and spun back to give him a nice four-footer across the grain of the green.
His partners had been experiencing contrasting fortunes. Norman parred the first half-dozen holes, whereas Westwood started with an extraordinary sequence of double bogey, birdie, bogey, birdie, bogey, birdie, birdie, birdie and finally, on the last hole of the front nine, his first par, matching the Australian veteran at one under for the outward half.
With zephyrs blowing across the 10th and 11th, few heroics were required as the players made progress alongside the railway line. After Woods had hit a three-wood over the gorse to the 11th fairway, his five-iron snaked low to within 20ft of the pin. "Pretty good," he muttered. "Beauty," his caddie, Steve Williams , corrected. "Thank you," Woods acknowledged. As on the 10th, however, his medium-length birdie putt obstinately failed to find the hole.
It was a similar story, only slightly worse, at the 12th, the only time all day that the wind blew along the axis of the hole - in this case into the players' faces. After slamming his clubhead into the turf when his second shot kicked into the rough to the side of the green, he again failed to make his par from 20ft.
At the 13th he missed with his putter from 10ft and dropped another shot, falling back to level par. Not until they reached the long 16th did he make amends, clearing the burn with a massive drive and sending a godlike second shot pin-high. His eagle putt broke perfectly from left to right as it approached the cup from 25ft, but halted barely an inch from the lip.
"I was really pleased today," he said after finishing the round with a pair of solid pars. "I played really well. I played a lot of good shots. I probably had a couple of shots on the front nine that I should have capitalised on, but it was a positive start and the good numbers were indicative of the way I played. I was controlling the ball well today. The wind was changing direction quite a bit, but generally this was as good as it gets here."
Four shots off the lead and with 25 players clustered ahead of him on the leaderboard, Woods is in the sort of position from which his adversaries would once have anticipated a blistering second-round attack. This time around, what happens next is anybody's guess.
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