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AUGUSTA, Ga. -- OK, call it a window of opportunity.
Albeit a tiny one, sort of like his chances of winning. If Tiger Woods had been a cat burglar, he might not have been able to crawl through the hole. But he stole a potentially crucial par, somehow.
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| Tiger swings well all round, but he doesn't quite get the job done on the green. (Getty Images) |
When he located his ball, nestled atop the slippery pine straw some 180 yards from the flag, his options were few. Either play out backward, or try to squeeze a shot into a 4-foot opening in the branches.
At this point, Woods wasn't going in reverse. He couldn't afford to.
"I had to either make a four or a six," he said, smirking. "Might as well go ahead and make four."
Just as he had a day earlier, Woods salvaged a memorable par on the final hole by first threading a shot through the trees, this time to finish off a 4-under 68, his best round at the Masters in three years.
It was a clutch time to thread the needle from the pine needles. Woods hadn't posted a score in the 60s at Augusta since the third round in 2005, which happened to be the last time he won the title. So, his timing on Saturday could not have been better -- and he sorely needed it.
Outside of the shoved tee ball on the 18th, Woods looked as solid as he had in years at Augusta, missing a series of putts by the thinnest of margins. By the time the day was finished, he had moved up eight spots on the leaderboard into fifth, but remains six shots behind 54-hole leader Trevor Immelman.
Now he faces another stern test. Rather famously, Woods has never won a major when coming from behind in the final round, harvesting all 13 after holding at least a share of the 54-hole lead. Even last year at Augusta, after moving into a tie for the lead early in the round, he couldn't deliver, finishing in a tie for second behind Zach Johnson.
The last player to erase a six-shot deficit to win on Sunday at the Masters was Nick Faldo in 1996, helped by Greg Norman's epic collapse. But with his third-round leap, Woods shot past all three of the guys who had claimed major titles in the past, leaving Retief Goosen and former Masters winners Mike Weir and Phil Mickelson in the dust.
Woods seemed almost defiant when asked for the 100th time about his inability to snatch a win from behind on Sunday at a major. He's as tired of hearing the question as we are of asking it, frankly.
"You want to win the Masters, period," Woods said. "Doesn't really matter how you do it as long as you do it."
