Tiger (72) Shows He’s Only Human

You knew it was going to be a different kind of Sunday for Tiger Woods when he hung his head and lingered in the tee box after pushing his drive into the right rough alongside the 13th fairway.

Under dark, ominous skies at the Riviera Country Club, in the final round of the Nissan Open, Woods at that moment looked for all the world as if he would rather have been anywhere else.

“Hang in there, baby,” a fan called out. “You’ll be OK.”

It was that kind of day.

His legion of followers felt compelled to console the world’s greatest golfer, the sport’s all-time leading money winner.

No late charge was at hand, no miracle victory forthcoming.

Though he would recover nicely on No. 13, making a 25-foot putt from the fringe of the green for a birdie, it was his last hurrah.

And, besides, he was already out of contention at that point, having put himself out of reach of the leaders with consecutive bogeys on the seventh, eighth and ninth holes.

After playing the last five holes at par, Woods finished his round at one-over 72, ending the tournament tied for 18th at five under.

It was the first time since last April’s MCI Classic that Woods, whose six-tournament winning streak ended with a share of second place last week at La Jolla, had finished out of the top 10 in a stroke-play tournament--a span of 13 PGA Tour events.

“It was just a bad round,” said Woods, who wound up seven shots behind winner Kirk Triplett after starting the day only three shots out of the lead. “I didn’t really have it going this entire week. If I would have putted a little better, I would have been right there in the championship.

“But you can’t have everything, you know. It’s just one of those weeks where I hit so many good putts that just lipped out.”

It was an errant drive, however, that started a bad stretch for Woods on Sunday.

After a birdie on No. 3, he was at seven under when he reached the seventh tee. From there, he landed his tee shot in the rough. On his second shot, he said, “I hit a bad drive, a little bit of a flier.”

It landed in deep rough, and Woods’ chip shot stopped rolling about 30 feet past the hole.

He two-putted for bogey, then three-putted from about 11 feet on No. 8 for another bogey.

On No. 9, another errant approach shot sailed beyond the hole into the rough. Woods chipped to about nine feet from the cup, but two-putted from there for his third consecutive bogey.

He was out of contention.

For the first time in his career, Woods was paired on a Sunday with the world’s No. 2 player, David Duval, but this isn’t what he had in mind.

Duval’s final-round 74 left him two shots behind Woods.

“Neither of us played too well,” said Woods, who will join Duval and 62 other players in the WGC-Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship starting Wednesday at La Costa.

“Maybe we’ll meet under different circumstances, preferably next week on Sunday morning--and then again in the afternoon,” he said.

That would mean they’d be playing in the 36-hole final, a more familiar situation than the one Woods found himself in Sunday.

“It was a little bit frustrating,” Woods said of playing the back nine with virtually no chance of winning, “but given the way I played this week, I really shouldn’t have been where I was today, to be honest with you. I should have been a little bit worse going into today. . . .

“My ball-striking was not too bad. I drove it beautifully this week, hit a lot of good irons. But my bad shots were pretty bad.”