Tiger Woods – ‘I’m getting there’

Tiger Woods failed to make ground on the leaders in the third round of the Masters, shooting a level par 72 alongside England’s Ian Poulter.

The four-time Masters winner said he needed to produce ‘something special’ today to give himself a chance. Once again, though, he struggled in the damp conditions but did play the round with a smile on his face.

The highlight was Woods raising both arms the air after finding the green on 12 for the first time this week.

“How about that? You know, I just, I just couldn’t do it three days in a row. I just couldn’t do it.  And I gave it a little bit more gas on it and made sure that I was long if I did miss and I hit a good one in there. 

“And missed the putt, but, hey, it’s a lot easier to play the hole from the green than it is dropping.”

Woods said he was pleased to be playing on the weekend and that his return was slowly coming together. His world ranking was over 1,000 at the start of the year and, by making the cut this week, he will likely be back inside the top-100.

“I’m just kind of gradually working on it, gradually building. I was pretty far out there (world ranking-wise) I’m going to guess like over 1,400 or something. But to gradually kind of build my way back into it, I’ve had some success in this comeback and I’m getting there. 

“I wish this week would have been a little bit better, hopefully tomorrow I can shoot something, get me to even par or even in the red, I think that will be a good goal tomorrow and hopefully I can get it done.”

Woods looked to be having fun with Poulter and was asked about his wayward drive on 17, which landed on the left side of the 15^th fairway, forcing him to wait whilst Bernhard Langer and Doug Ghim played their shots into the green.

“It was a fairway hit,” joked Woods. “What are you talking about?”