Woods Sticks to Positive Spin

Nine might be enough for Tiger Woods, or even too much, but that’s how he left Royal Troon and the British Open, adding another number to his streak of majors without winning one.

Woods, who has insisted he isn’t far off from changing all that, missed what looked like a good chance Sunday, when his closing round of 72 left him tied for ninth with Mike Weir at three-under 281.

“I feel like I played well, but I just made too many mistakes here and there,” he said. “I didn’t make any high numbers, but I didn’t make a lot of birdies, either.”

He had 12 birdies for the week, all but one of them on the front nine. The only birdie Woods had on the back was the 16th hole on Thursday.

Woods played the front side in a total of eight under and the back in a total of five over.

Woods led the field in driving distance, averaging 310.3 yards on measured drives, and he tied for 13th in greens hit and tied for 15th in fairways hit. He tied for 49th in putting.

“I had a chance this week and felt like I really could have won this tournament,” he said. “I should be pretty happy about that.”

Starting the day four shots out of the lead, Woods made a small move early. He had two birdies on the front and probably should have had four, which would have put him in the hunt instead of back in the pack.

Woods’ first missed opportunity was when he failed to birdie the 560-yard, par-five No. 4. A bad drive into the left rough cost him the chance there.

He holed a bunker shot to birdie the fifth and made a six-footer for a birdie at the par-five sixth to get to six-under, only two shots off the lead.

But that’s as close as Woods could make it. His luck, his tournament and his streak all collided at the seventh, where Woods had a chance for another birdie from five feet, but pulled it left. The seventh is also the place that hurt Woods on Thursday when he was two-under, but lost his momentum as soon as he three-putted for a bogey, missing a two-footer.

Bad drives cost him back-to-back bogeys at the 12th and 13th, and it was over for him. Meanwhile, his streak goes on. The last major Woods won was the 2002 U.S. Open, a span of 25 months.

At least he’s working his way in the right direction in the majors. He tied for 22nd at the Masters, tied for 17th at the U.S. Open, and this time he tied for ninth.

There’s still one more major left -- the PGA Championship is next month at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis.