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KOHLER, Wis. — After Tiger Woods’ opening round at the PGA Championship, Canadian swing coach Sean Foley should have been waiting at the clubhouse with a contract offer Woods couldn’t refuse.
Woods had a one-under-par 71, three shots off the early lead held by Bubba Watson and Francesco Molinari in the first round at Whistling Straits.
A three-hour fog delay in the morning meant the opening round could not be completed Thursday.
Woods, coming off the worst performance of his career, last week at the Bridgestone Invitational, is considering hiring Foley as his swing coach to replace Hank Haney, who resigned in May.
Woods played a practice round with Foley students Hunter Mahan and Sean O’Hair on Tuesday. They were joined by Foley, whom Woods asked to videotape his swing. Woods practised beside Mahan on the range Wednesday with Foley keeping an eye on his swing.
Woods has been working on keeping his head steady at Foley’s suggestion and it seemed to help Thursday as Woods had much better control of his golf ball.
“I played too good not to shoot under par,” said Woods, who started on the back nine and birdied three of his first four holes before suffering a bogey when he missed the fairway on 15. He bogeyed the par-5 second and the par-3 seventh before sinking an eight-foot putt on the ninth to finish his round in the red.
That was a huge putt for Woods, giving him some momentum going into the second round — whenever that will be.
“It would have been very disappointing and frustrating to end up at even par, as well as I played,” he said. “To shoot something under par, that was the goal. I got off to a quick start and all of a sudden, I felt like I could shoot something in the 60s. Didn’t quite happen.”
Woods has looked more at ease this week after going 18-over par last week at Bridgestone. He said the key Thursday was regaining control over the flight of his golf ball, critical in the winds which started to gust up on the bluffs above Lake Michigan.
“Well, I think overall, I felt like I had pretty good control of my trajectory, which was good, especially with the wind,” he said. “I was able to flight the ball better than I was last week. But also, I had good speed on the greens again and, if anything, I was leaving the putts just a little bit short. The greens were a little bit slower than what I was seeing.”
There was no question Woods looked at ease on the greens. His stroke had more pace and flow to it and his speed — which had been awful at the British Open at St. Andrews — was almost spot on.
“I felt so much more comfortable over it,” said Woods, who one-putted his first four greens. “I got my lines back. I got everything lined up where I could release the blade, the toe is moving again, which is great, something I like to feel. It felt good.”
It’s only one round, but it was enough to stem some of the talk about Woods ever finding his form again. He’s only going to get it back by building on the improvements he showed Thursday, better control off the tee and better pace on the greens.
“Everything was better,” he said.
Was last week the bottom for Woods and is he on the way back up now?
It looked like it Thursday.
But it was, afte rall, just one round.