On Golf
By KAREN CROUSE
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Watching Tiger Woods launch wildly errant drives was hard. Watching his ground-ball chip shots was harder. But the hardest part of watching Woods’s career-worst round Friday at the Phoenix Open was seeing the greatest golfer of his generation turn into the lovable last-place straggler.
Fans at T.P.C. Scottsdale, renowned for their crassness, were overcome with compassion as Woods, who was No. 1 in the world at this time last year, struggled to an 11-over-par 82 and a 36-hole total of 13-over 155. It was only the second time in 303 PGA Tour starts as a professional that Woods had failed to break 80 (the other time was in the third round of the 2002 British Open, played in hellacious conditions). For Woods, who has been breaking 80 since age 8, the score was full of foreboding. He might as well have had the Grim Reaper on his bag instead of his trusty caddie, Joe LaCava.
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Woods’s next start is scheduled to take place next week at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego, a course where he has nine victories as a pro. He does not come across as someone resigned to mediocrity. Asked what he would do between now and then, Woods, who lives in Florida, said he was going home to practice.
“Each and every day,” he said. “Just work on it.”
A version of this article appears in print on January 31, 2015, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Fading Titan, Cheered On With Pity. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
