| Woods
thankful the suffering ended Southport,
Lancashire, 18th July 1998 - Tiger Woods felt he had met the physical
and mental demands of playing golf in a howling wind but he still finished beaten
up and suffering after the third round of the Open Championship on Saturday.
His seven-over-par
77 at Royal Birkdale stemmed from a lot of missed short putts because he was repeatedly
buffeted in mid-stroke by the wind which he said "tends to beat you up a
bit". "The
suffering is over," he said when the carnage has ended. But
though he dropped from joint second, one shot off the pace, to joint sixth, five
strokes behind leader Brian Watts, the world number one was satisfied with his
concentration during the round. "I
thought every shot out, I made all the right decisions on my clubs," Woods
said. "Just sometimes I couldn't pull the shots off. "Sometimes
I would make a bad swing or a bad stroke but my thought process was good. I don't
think I can really improve on that." He
said the wind gusting across the greens made putting a lottery and he missed from
six, three and four feet on three successive holes from the fourth. "The
gusts would hit you. I leaned into the wind a couple of times and it would let
up on me and I would lose my balance. "Sometimes
I would brace myself for the wind and it wouldn't blow. Or I'd think it was not
going to blow and a gust would hit me. It is very difficult because your putter
blade is not going back staight. It is wobbling all over the place because the
wind gets hold of it." Woods
said he had a six-footer at the fourth where he felt the wind would not blow but
just as the ball was heading for the centre of the hole a gust moved it away.
"That was
from six feet. Imagine when you have 30, 40 and 50-footers out there how difficult
it is." Woods,
the 1997 Masters champion, believed he could still win his second major and hoped
the conditions remained difficlt. "That
would be best for the guys who are behind. If you can make a lot of pars and the
guys come back to you, a lot of strange things can happen." Woods,
22, is used to being the youngest player in contention but here that honour goes
to 17-year-old English amateur Justin Rose, who is fifth, two shots ahead of the
American, and has the crowds on his side. "Obviously
he's feeling a lot of pressure too. But if he can go out there with the attitude
that he really had nothing to lose and just play golf, obviously his talents are
good enough. "He's
in a great position," Woods said. "He's a great player. No doubt about
it, he has a great chance." Completed
Third Round Scores | 
