Tiger Woods confirms Open Championship entry

Woods, Mickelson and Rickie Fowler, the third member of the high-profile grouping, rarely capitalized on the favorable conditions.

Hold on to your hats Irish golfing fans, Tiger Woods could be set to announce that he will play at the Duty Free Irish Open this summer. Still true to his alpha dog nature, he also made sure Mickelson realized his place in the game. “There were times where we kind of got that going”.

The real fireworks were happening on other parts of the course as Woods and Mickelson cleaned up their respective messes on the final hole: Sergio Garcia doing Sergio Garcia at TPC Sawgrass things, Patrick Cantlay reminding us that he might in fact be a superstar, Steve Stricker (!) trying to lead alone.

Barring a significant turnaround Friday, Lefty will miss the cut at the Players for the fifth time in the last six years.

“My dad used to always look after me”, Schwartzel said.

“I got to shoot something in the probably mid 60s both days to get myself up there and have a chance”, Woods said. “I think they might have tipped back a couple and got a little sleepy”. There wouldn’t be too many people wanting to come down the stretch against Tiger Woods. The biggest reactions were the groans when Mickelson hit his tee shot on No. 17 into the water and when Woods did the same on No. 18. “It was just a bad week and the good news is that you wipe your hands clean and move on to the next one”.

Could we see a return of Shell’s Wonderful…

Woods and Mickelson have put on a show a few times before. “I said it Sunday at Wells Fargo (where he tied for fifth), I was anxious about energy this week”.

Woods was on point with his irons during a T-12 finish at the Honda Classic, finishing first in the field in average proximity to the hole.

Aware of the high interest in their first pairing in almost four years, Mickelson joked earlier in the week he and Woods should just go directly to Sunday and settle things head to head, victor take all.

Mickelson has no illusions about who was better at Woods’ peak during the early 2000s. And it sucked to have to play against him.

The hoopla surrounding Woods and Mickelson won’t go away anytime soon, and in this instance anyway, it felt deserved. Woods’ 72 was right at the scoring average on Thursday at the time he finished.

The two surprised many teeing it up during a Tuesday practice round at the Masters. “I don’t know what to say”.

The 47-year-old took golf’s conservative style style to a different degree with a long-sleeve collared workplace shirt at Sawgrass, and his struggling 79 was sympomatic of a wider malaise among the many much-hyped marquee teams at Sawgrass.