Father Hospitalized, Woods Soars to a 78

“You want to follow him one more hole and see if he breaks out of this funk?” one Tiger watcher said to another Friday as the number of bogeys on Tiger Woods’ scorecard threatened to almost match the amount of holes played.

Funk?

Was that it?

A case of the rookie nerves?

A 20-year-old finally waking up in the middle of the PGA’s Tour Championship and asking himself, “What in the world am I doing out here with Tom Watson, Tom Lehman and Fred Couples?”

If only.

What the gallery didn’t know was that while Woods hacked up the course at Southern Hills Country Club, on his way to an eight-over-par 78, Woods’ thoughts were miles away--at Tulsa’s St. Francis Hospital, where his father, Earl, was resting after being treated in the trauma emergency center for chest pains.

Earl Woods, Tiger’s 64-year-old career counselor, motivational guru, practice partner and president, secretary and treasurer of the “Tiger, The Next Nicklaus” campaign, was admitted to St. Francis just before 3 a.m. Friday morning after complaining of a persistent discomfort in his chest. He has a history of heart problems, having undergone quadruple-bypass surgery 10 years ago.

Tiger accompanied Earl to the hospital and stayed with his father until 5 a.m., when doctors assured the Woods family that Earl’s condition was “non-life-threatening.”

According to a hospital source, tests and X-rays showed that Earl Woods had developed fluid in the base of his left lung, but indicated no heart or coronary irregularities. On doctors’ advice, he was to remain in the hospital overnight for rest.

“I didn’t want to be out there today, because there are more important things in life than golf,” Woods said as he hurried off the 18th green to drive to the hospital. “I love my dad to death. I’m going to go see him now. . . . Hopefully, he’s OK.”

Later Friday night, the hospital issued a statement that Earl Woods was “resting comfortably and is able to watch his son, Tiger, on a television set in his hospital room.”

Earl Woods has always been more than a stage parent to his son; he sketched “The Future of Professional Golf” blueprint when Tiger was in diapers and made sure his son stayed the course, every cleated step of the way.

Earl is the one who keeps pulling the flag on Tiger and moving it back farther. Tiger never said he was going to revolutionize golf; Earl said it for him. Tiger never forecast a career haul of 14 major professional championships; it was Earl who set the bar that high.

Seeing his father in the emergency room left Woods shaken as he teed off in the second round of the Tour Championship less than eight hours after returning from the hospital.

Woods held it together for one hole, making par in four strokes and maintaining his even-par standing for the tournament.

Then, he tackled the rest of the front nine.

Hole No. 2: Tee shot into the water, double bogey.

No. 3: Bogey.

No. 4: Bogey.

No. 5: Bogey.

No. 6: Bogey.

No. 7: Par.

No. 8: Bogey.

No. 9: Bogey.

Woods went out at 43, eight strokes over par.

He broke even on the back nine, negating two more bogeys with a pair of birdies to finish the day at 78, 148 for the tournament--15 strokes behind leader Lehman, who shot a three-under 67 Friday and is seven under (133) for the tournament. Second-place Vijay Singh is four strokes back at 137 after shooting a second-round 71.

Grim-faced and mostly silent through the first nine holes, Woods finally turned to his playing partner, John Cook, on No. 10 and said, “All I want to do is get done and see my dad.”

Said Cook: “I didn’t know what that was about, but it didn’t sound right. He didn’t give me any more details--he doesn’t volunteer stuff like that--but I had an idea of the situation. It wasn’t until we finished the 18th that Tiger and his mom explained the details to me.”

On the 10th, Cook, en route to a three-over-par 73 himself, tried to lighten the mood by joking to Woods, “It’s not that hard!” Woods laughed a bit at that. After nine holes, the pair had already combined for seven bogeys and two double bogeys.

“As anyone could tell, he was struggling,” Cook said. “But I couldn’t tell if that was because he was distracted or had his father on his mind. Because I have seen this kind of thing happen on a course like this. You can be too aggressive and it’ll make you look silly.

“I just thought, ‘He’s got a lot of adrenaline going.’ Especially on the greens. His putts were very hard, too hard for greens this fast.”

Cook, a 17-year tour veteran, was impressed by the way Woods collected himself on the back nine.

“People don’t understand, when something like this happens to you in life,” Cook said. “They say, ‘It’s just golf, put it behind you for 4 1/2 hours.’ It doesn’t work like that.”