Tiger Woods had a clear analysis of his first round of competition after more than seven months of absence. The great Californian champion, for example, acknowledged at the end of the round that he had pains in various parts of his body, but he did not give the matter much importance. However, he did give importance to the mental aspect, where he has seen himself several steps below what he used to be.
His speech on the matter is interesting: “I had a decent start to the round, but then, in the second half and the end, I noticed a lack of commitment to what I had to do. Instead of reacting naturally to what you feel you have to do, you’re thinking about what you have to do until the very moment of pulling the trigger and then a bad shot comes out… It’s happened to me over and over again. It’s been a lack of commitment to what I was feeling and doing, I have to improve.”
However, about the physical part, nothing that surprised him. And Tiger insisted more on the mental aspect. “I’m sore, there’s no doubt about that and tonight we’re going to have work. Pain in the back, neck, leg… And tomorrow I’ll be back in the gym to activate myself and be prepared. Now I know what I need to do better mentally because I’ve made some mistakes in this regard. Mentally I’ve seen myself very rusty and I’ve made mistakes that I usually don’t make.”
Be that as it may, Tiger has shown himself to be tempered and even smiling once the round was over. He had his reasons. “It’s been a lot of fun being out there with J. T. (Justin Thomas), Bonesy (Jim ‘Bones’ Mackay, Thomas’s caddie) and Rob (Rob McNamara, Tiger’s caddie this week). It’s been a great day. We’ve been joking about how we were preparing for the fifth Major of the year, which is in a couple of weeks.”
Woods has also acknowledged that the pace of play, logically, “is not the same when you’re competing as when you’re playing a practice round at home”, and he’s also noticed it slightly, as well as some other incident typical of a tournament, like the long wait his match suffered at hole 6, when Scheffler, who was in the match ahead, had to resolve a complicated situation with a drop included. “We were playing at a good pace and it broke, but these things happen in a golf tournament and it’s something you maybe take for granted when you’re there every week competing, but not so much when it’s not like that,” he concluded.
