Woods Fashions a Solid Round

Like everyone else who took on Pinehurst No. 2, Tiger Woods knew he couldn’t win the U.S. Open in the first round, but that he surely could lose it with a scruffy day of getting stuck in the pine needles.

Woods did nothing to eliminate himself from consideration with his opening round of par 70, which was a model of efficiency even if it wasn’t all that exciting.

The only thing flashy about Woods on Thursday was his choice of clothing. He broke out some new duds, including a colorful polo shirt that comes pretty close to the shade you’d get if you popped a salmon filet and a slice of watermelon into a blender and hit puree. Nike calls the color “Coho,” probably because “Salmon-Melon” doesn’t sound very appetizing.

And, for probably the first time in years, Woods didn’t wear pleated pants. He wore a cuffed, gray variety with a flat front, which broke nicely across his gray and white shoes.

So for Woods, it was all about making statements, fashion and otherwise. On the course, where it’s more about how you play than how you look, Woods remains on schedule to win his second major of the year.

Look at it this way: He hit only six fairways, 12 greens and needed 30 putts ... and it still didn’t hurt him. Woods might have been fortunate to shoot par, but he did -- and on a punishing track, where the fear factor is its own reality show.

Only five players have won the Masters and the U.S. Open in the same year and Woods is trying to do it a second time. Ben Hogan did it in 1951 and 1953, Craig Wood in 1941, Arnold Palmer in 1960, Jack Nicklaus in 1972 and Woods in 2002.

It’s a select list, but so is the one for players who have won the Grand Slam.

There’s one, Bobby Jones.

Woods has his own version of the Grand Slam, the so-called Tiger Slam -- holding all four major titles at the same time -- which he achieved by winning the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA in 2000, plus the 2001 Masters.

Detractors say Woods’ slam is flawed because it didn’t occur in a calendar year, but Woods isn’t buying that.

He said it would be nice to win all four in one year, but he had all four on his mantle at one time.

Who knows, Woods might even be right about taking four days of par around here and then seeing if that produced the result he is looking for. What we do know is that he has willed himself to play a style of golf that doesn’t come naturally to him.

Woods’ natural tendency is to play aggressively, fire away, and shoot for the pins. No one has won the U.S. Open with that style, although more than a few have lost it that way. All week, Woods has stressed the importance of patience, of being able to wait for a break, to accept par when that’s all there is.

He birdied both par fives Thursday and that’s totally Woods’ game. He also made a couple of bogeys, one of them at the treacherous 492-yard 16th. Woods drove into the right rough, knocked it into the front bunker, came out to 25 feet and two-putted.

That’s a recipe for a bogey, all right, but it’s also where Woods showed some spark. He had some sharp words for some photographers when Woods said they caught him in his downswing on his second shot.

Other than that incident, it was a mellow day for the guy in the brightly colored shirt.

Afterward, he said he was hungry, but instead of heading for the dining room he took off for the driving range to work out a few kinks. He knew he must find a way to keep the ball in the fairway more often. Head down, Woods trudged up steps of green wooden planks, flanked by his agent and two security guards, down the other side and onto the range.

Before he left, though, Woods said nothing needs to change about the course conditions the next three days, that the USGA must keep it fair and should not allow the greens to became any harder than they are.

Pinehurst No. 2, he said, is tough enough, that it tests a player more than any other course he knows.

On opening day, it had tested Woods, who examined his game and came up with a less than flashy way of doing business, something that the color of his shirt never once gave away.