Tiger suffers putting struggles in new career-worst at The Masters

Tiger Woods experienced a day to forget on the greens at Augusta National as he posted his worst round of his long Masters career.

The world No 973, playing in his first competitive event back since last February's career-threatening car crash, was nine behind halfway leader Scottie Scheffler but quickly dropped further down the leaderboard in cold and breezy conditions.

Woods sat bottom of the putting statistics after carding a four-putt and four three-putts during a six-over 78 on Saturday, with the 15-time major champion dropping four shots over his closing three holes to slip tied-41st of the 52 players making it through to the weekend.

"Today was a challenge with the conditions," Woods said. "The conditions were tough today. They were tough yesterday starting out, but at least we got a little bit of a lull at the end.

"Today it has just been blustery all day. You add in the temperature difference, it was cold starting out. The ball wasn't going very far. I thought it was tough. Some of the other guys may not say that, but for me, I had a tough time.

"I felt like I didn't really hit it that bad, but I had four three-putts and a four-putt. Obviously, it has affected the score. You take those away and I have normal two putts, I made even par for the day. I did what I needed to do ball striking-wise, but I did absolutely the exact opposite on the greens."

Woods bounced back from bogeying the opening hole for the second day running to birdie the par-five next, with the 46-year-old getting up and down from over a bunker to save par at the fourth but then taking four putts - including three from six feet - to double-bogey the par-four next.

The former world No 1 scrambled to make back-to-back par-saves from the sixth but