Woods toils to 6-over 78 in The Open grind

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland (AP) — “Smile” came the plea from a wee lad in the three-rows-deep gallery as Tiger Woods, stony-faced and with his head bowed, slowly approached the fourth tee at St. Andrews.

An hour into his first round and the one major Woods just couldn’t miss — The Open at the home of golf — was beginning with a real grind.

A tough-to-watch start had seen Woods chunk his second shot into the Swilcan Burn, before he missed a short putt to run up a double-bogey. Then came a three-putt for bogey at the third hole.

By the time he had dropped two more shots at No. 7 after driving into a bunker on the adjacent hole, Woods was 6-over par and looking as forlorn as the spectator following the 15-time major winner while dressed in a tiger onesie.

He finished on that number, with the 6-over 78 matching his second-worst round at golf's oldest major and giving him a remote chance of making the weekend in what might be his final Open at St. Andrews.

Perhaps it was too much to expect Woods to contend this week, despite being one of the greatest players to pick up a golf club.

After all, he is playing on a right leg pieced together from a February 2021 car crash. It is only his third event of 2022 — all of them have been major championships — and first in nearly two months.

The 46-year-old Woods said this week he has no idea how long he’ll be able to compete physically at the highest level because of his battered body. So it meant he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play St. Andrews, perhaps for one last time on the stage where he won two of his three British Open titles.

That might explain the size of the cheers he received when walking onto the practice putting green beside the first tee, where he did some light