Sick, Tired, Nearly Snake Bit, Tiger Woods Keeps On Playing

First his stomach went sour. Then his driver left him. Finally, a snake took a shot at his nerves.

On a day when everything seemed to go wrong, Tiger Woods put on a sterling display of perseverance to shoot par and keep defending national champion Stanford from having to withdraw from the NCAA men’s West Regional golf tournament.

Nauseous and so dehydrated he sometimes had to lie down between shots, the current U.S. amateur champion and most acclaimed teen-age player in golf history made five birdies Thursday in a round of 72 over the 7,300-yard Championship Course.

“It was a great performance,” Stanford coach Wally Goodwin said. “He spent the whole night vomiting and somehow made it through the round. I think Tiger would play till the last breath is gone from him.”

Woods left the course immediately after finishing his round and was taken to University Hospital. Woods and senior teammate Casey Martin, who also came down with the same stomach ailment, were treated for gastroenteritis and released, said hospital spokeswoman Annie Olson.

Both were expected to be ready for today’s second round of the 54-hole regional.

Woods, who at 19 already has played in eight PGA events, was the only amateur to make the cut at the Masters last month and will play this summer in the U.S. Open and British Open. He got sick after the team meal Wednesday.

With Martin too sick to play Thursday, Stanford was down to the minimum four players. Another withdrawal would have meant elimination for the Cardinal so Woods, at times doubled over in pain, had to tough it out.

He consistently smashed 300-plus drives but missed six fairways and, after driving his ball into a mesquite bush on the back nine, came close to stepping on a small snake.