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Tiger Woods Starts Second Round of Deutsche Bank Golf Nine Shots Off Lead
Tiger Woods is three shots out of last place as he begins the second round at the U.S. PGA Tour’s Deutsche Bank Championship near Boston, nine shots behind leaders Jason Day and Zach Johnson.
Woods, who began his opening round yesterday on the 10th hole at the TPC of Boston course in Norton, Massachusetts, finished at 1-over-par 72. After bogeys on four of his first six holes, Woods carded consecutive birdies to finish his opening nine holes. He then had one birdie over his closing nine.
“I didn’t drive it very good, I didn’t putt good, I didn’t hit my irons good,” Woods said yesterday. “Other than that, it was a good day.”
Day, of Australia, and Johnson, of the U.S., finished their rounds at eight under, one shot ahead of Ryan Moore, Ryan Palmer, Rory McIlroy, Hunter Mahan, Brian Davis, D.J. Trahan, Geoff Ogilvy and Charley Hoffman.
With heavy rains from Tropical Storm Earl threatening to hit the New England area, players were allowed to clean and place their golf balls on shots from the fairways yesterday. The ruling gave early competitors, such as Day and Johnson, favorable playing conditions and led to low scores.
“If we get rain, ball doesn’t roll in the fairway, ball doesn’t roll on the greens, you’re going to see low scores throughout the week,” Johnson said. “If we don’t get a whole lot of rain or if we get some wind to dry it out, it could dry up and be difficult. So it’s all weather-based.”
Top 30
Woods must finish among the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings to advance to next week’s BMW Championship at Cog Hill outside Chicago. The top 30 players then move on to the season- ending Tour Championship in Atlanta on Sept. 23-26.
The FedEx Cup winner receives a $10 million bonus. Woods has won the title two of the past three years.
“I’m obviously going to have to shoot something pretty good (today), just get some kind of momentum going,” Woods said. “Obviously we’ve got easy holes starting out, but we don’t know what kind of weather we’re going to have. A lot is depending on what the weather does. But either way I’m still going to have to shoot a good score.”
Phil Mickelson, golf’s No. 2 ranked player behind Woods, was 2 under at the end of the round.
Woods, 34, tied for 12th place at last week’s Barclays tournament in New Jersey, moving him into 65th place in the FedExCup standings, up from 112th a week earlier. He is winless in 10 PGA Tour events this year.
The Boston-area course is just west of the likely path of Tropical Storm Earl, downgraded from a hurricane last night as it approached New England, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
The storm was expected to pass within 50 miles to 100 miles of the popular tourist destinations of Cape Cod and Nantucket overnight before going ashore in Canada. The National Weather Service issued a flash-flood watch for southern Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the islands. As much as six inches of rain is possible, the agency said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Buteau in Atlanta at mbuteau@bloomberg.net
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