Tiger Woods plays first-round 78 at The Open in windy weather

• Tiger Woods shoots a 6-over 78 in his first round at the Open Championship.
• The 15-time major champion trails leader Cameron Young by 14 shots.
• Woods claims the speed of the Old Course’s greens was slower than the fairways.

Tiger Woods first round at the 150th Open Championship began with a superb tee shot in a fresh divot in the middle of the fairway, which resulted in a double-bogey on the first hole at St. Andrews’ Old Course.

It didn’t get much better for the 15-time major champion from there. Woods shot a 6-over 78 by the time it was over six hours later. He trailed leader Cameron Young by 14 shots.

It was a dismal start for Woods, who is just playing in his third official tournament of the season. Woods’ second shot received a big gust of wind after he found his original tee shot in a divot. His ball landed in a burn directly in front of the green. Woods produced a superb chip shot to approximately 3 feet after a drop, but he missed the shot putt and recorded a double-bogey 6.

“Well, probably [the] highest score as I could have shot,” Woods stated. “[I] didn’t get off to a great start. … But in a round sometimes it just goes that way. It just goes one way and it never seems to come back, no matter how hard you fight.”

Woods claimed he exacerbated his bad luck by failing to acclimate to the speed of the Old Course’s greens, which he claimed were slower than the fairways. Following four holes, he was four over after a three-putt bogey on No. 4.

“I think I had maybe four or five three-putts [Thursday],” Woods added. “Just wasn’t very good on the greens and every putt I left short. I struggled with hitting the putts hard enough. They looked faster than what they were putting, and I struggled with it.”

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After the first round, Woods, a two-time winner of The Open at St. Andrews in 2000 and 2005, was tied for 146th out of 156 players. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the only other occasion Woods was in worse shape after the opening 18 holes of a major was at the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, when he shot 10-over 80 and finished tied for 152nd.

“It feels like I didn’t really hit it that bad,” Woods said. “Yes, I did have bad speed on the greens. But I didn’t really feel like I hit it that bad, but I ended up in bad spots. Or just had some weird things happen, and just the way it goes. Links is like that and this golf course is like that. And as I said, I had my chances to turn it around and get it rolling the right way and I didn’t do it.”

“Very, very meaningful,” Woods said. “All things considered, where I’ve been, I was hoping I could play this event this year. Looking at it at the beginning of the year, end of last year when I was rehabbing, trying to see if I could do it, but somehow I was able to play two of the major championships in between then and now, which was great.

“But this was always on the calendar to hopefully be well enough to play it, and I am. And just didn’t do a very good job of it.”

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