Wincing Tiger Woods endures his marathon to make Masters history

No one around the 14th at Augusta National on Friday morning seemed to have slept too much. There was Caroline, 56, who was kept awake by her knee. She twisted it last week when she slipped on a flight of stairs, and it still hurt after all the walking she did on opening day. And then there was Josh, 15, who was so excited he woke up two hours before his family had to leave for the course. And there was Simon, 31, who had had a skinful the night before and was dragged out of bed by his housemates.

And there were several thousand others. At 48, Tiger Woods still has a gallery three times the size of anyone here. The sun was just above the pines, the sky was clear and the day stretched out like an open road. So no matter how restless they felt about it the moment they woke up, they and everyone else enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that at this particular moment there was nowhere else in the world they would rather have been than where they were: besides the tee. box watching Woods prepare for his first shot of the second day of the 88th Masters.

Woods may have been the only person around who didn’t seem to be enjoying the morning. He certainly wasn’t grinning. He had probably slept less than anyone else, and had the determined look of a man going through a hard day.

It had been eight o’clock when he had broken off his round the night before. He was aged one to thirteen at the time, despite playing in a wind that, he said afterwards, had made it “one of the toughest days I’ve ever been part of” here. He still had five holes to play, which meant he had to get through 23 in the next eight hours. He had only played 24 total since early December, at the Genesis Invitational, and ended up getting driven off the course in a golf cart and withdrawing from the tournament after the final six.

Woods gives the impression that he has a tough job getting up and down the stairs these days, let alone getting up and down and around 18 here in Augusta. “I’m in pain every day,” he said earlier this week, “I’m in pain every day.” You almost wonder why he does this to himself, but then you might as well ask the shark why he swims, or the scorpion why he stings. “I love golf,” he said Tuesday, “I love preparing. I love competition, and I love that feeling when everything is on fire with a chance to win.”

He would need that. It had not even been 12 hours and there he was, back again. He barely had a handful of hours of rest between his warm-up and his warm-up. He grimaced, stretched, turned, sat up and clattered his opening drive 300 yards down the fairway. This left him with a wedge in the ball. He caught it clumsily and scowled by the time it fell twenty yards short of the green. So he started with one bogey five, followed by another on the 18th, where he hit his second shot into the bunker on the right. His one under ended in a one over.

Tiger Woods continues to draw crowds heading into his 24th consecutive appearance in Augusta. Photo: Mike Blake/Reuters

Woods had exactly 51 minutes to prepare for his next round. He spent most of it on the practice range, updating his yardage book, rubbing on some pain-relieving gel and taking a few dozen shots with his irons before heading to the practice green and then back to the first tee.

Woods’ next nine holes were up, down and all around. He stormed through quite well. There were birdies at the 3rd and 6th, where he hit a magical chip-in from the edge of the greenside bunker, and another at the 8th, but then there were bogeys at the 4th, 5th and 7th. Even his par on the 9th came via a tee shot into the trees on the right and a second that reached the gallery on the left of the green. You’ve rarely seen a man find a wilder way to cover the front nine in an even 36. The second nine was a little easier, with a bogey on 14 offset by a birdie on 15.

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It all added up to one of the hardest 72s he ever made.

And when it was over, he had made the cut for the 24th time in a row. That didn’t mean much to him except, he said, that “it means I have a chance going into the weekend, that I’m here and I have a chance to win the golf tournament.” Oh, and it meant he got the chance to screw his great friend Freddie Couples, who shared this particular record with him. He didn’t stop to say much more. He needed a cup of coffee, he said, a bite to eat and a little sleep. “It was a long day,” he admitted, “a long day.” And he has a few more in the pipeline.