Disappointing round has Woods way back

His 75 stood out as the worst score among the final four groups.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. -- Tiger Woods played himself out of this U.S. Open on Saturday with what might have been the most stunningly poor round he's ever had in a major.
The 81 in last year's gale at the British Open surely will be the worst he ever shoots, but Saturday he shot a 75 on a golf course that he could have overpowered.
Even on a day when a swirling wind finally put some teeth in Olympia Fields, Tiger's 75 stood out as the worst score among the final four groups, and left him 11 shots behind Jim Furyk.
Set and match. Hello, British Open.
To think the conditions finally favored Tiger, too.
Normally he prays for anything that will separate his game from the mere mortals, and then he charges. But with the wind up a bit Saturday, he went backward faster than 53-year-old Tom Watson.
Slump?
So you're left to wonder: Is Tiger officially in a slump, no matter how much he fumes at such a notion, or was this one time when he outthought himself?
Actually, it would be two times, since it was only a couple of months ago that Tiger's decision to listen his caddie and hit driver on a short par-4 led to a Sunday fade at the Masters.
Perhaps the two are related.
Normally Tiger's head is his most reliable weapon. In addition to his supreme talent, he has long since proven he thinks and manages his game under pressure as well as anyone since Jack Nicklaus.
As such, he approached this U.S. Open the way he does all majors, playing conservatively, figuring the golf course and the pressure will have everyone else down by Sunday afternoon.
Played it safe
But this Open has played more like a regular Tour event, especially the first two days. While other players were bombing the ball with drivers, unafraid of the unusually sparse rough, and taking dead aim at most every pin, Tiger played it safe.
On Thursday morning he was ultra-conservative, saying after his even-par 70 that he fired at one flag all day, fearing the usual consequences for getting too bold at the Open.
On Saturday, he hit driver once all day, on the 18th hole. No less a voice of authority than Johnny Miller was questioning his strategy on NBC's telecast, saying that Tiger should have realized that even if he missed the fairway with his driver, with his length he would have been hitting wedges from wispy rough.
In other words, he could have had his way with Olympia Fields. Instead Tiger played it safe, hitting irons off tees and leaving himself long approach shots to greens. As a result, he didn't give himself any short birdie putts all day.
Tiger himself, obviously aware of Miller's analysis after his round, insisted he couldn't have hit driver more even if he wanted to, even on the two par-5s or the 496-yard par-4 ninth hole.
"There wasn't enough room out there for me to hit it," he said.
Gun-shy?
Again, you wonder: Was Tiger gun-shy with the driver because of what happened at the Masters?
The situations were completely different, since Tiger was only two strokes back on Sunday afternoon, with 15 holes ahead of him at the time, and didn't need to force the issue.
In any case, Tiger didn't particularly like being cross-examined after his round, but he took it in stride. He may show his displeasure on the golf course, but afterward he refuses to ever give the public a peek at his true feelings.
So he talked up his game, as usual, saying he really hadn't played that poorly.
"I just couldn't make a thing on the greens," he said. "The greens were so slow, I couldn't make myself hit the ball hard enough all day. The one birdie I made [a 20-footer on No. 16], I told myself to try to hit the ball three feet by . . . and it went in."