The fog lifted
and unveiled a first round today in the Tour Championship that was as shocking
as it was sad.
Tiger
Woods hit through a rock the size of a baseball and left the course holding his
left wrist in pain. Bob Estes hit the shortest drive in PGA Tour history. And
Davis Love III, so shaken by an emotional service for Payne Stewart that he almost
left, returned to take a one-stroke lead after an unforgettable day.
And the toughest part is still to come.
Not long after making nine birdies in 27 holes for a score of 7-under 99 at Champions
Golf Club, Love and Woods boarded a private plane for Orlando, Fla.
The memorial service for Stewart, among six people killed in a plane crash on
Monday, is at 11 a.m. EDT Friday.
Once again, the 29 players in the lucrative Tour Championship will have to figure
out how to put their effort and concentration into what felt like a silly game
in the first round.
"It
just didn't excite me," Love said. "The fun doesn't last very long. It was more
like work."
For
Love, the fun included two birdie putts over 40 feet long and a 30-foot chip-in,
along with having the actor from the "Sign Boy" commercial writing the initials
"P.S." on his hat, a tribute to Stewart.
But there was also that woman he saw wearing knickers. And there was that plane
carrying a banner that read, "We will remember you, Payne," that caused Love to
take 10 minutes over a 4-foot putt.
"The
whole day I was thinking about all kinds of things -- events of the week, all
kinds of other crazy thoughts," Love said. "When you're not concentrating, it's
hard to stay focused. I definitely wasn't."
It was hard on Woods in other ways.
One stroke out of the lead with four holes to play, his drive on No. 15 came to
rest next to a tree and directly in front of a rock. He couldn't move the rock
without the ball moving, too, which would have been a one-stroke penalty.
"If I took two club lengths
(a one-stroke penalty), I would still be in the rough, the tree in my line. A
bogey would be a good number," he said. "If I could somehow get the ball back
out in the fairway ... which is what I tried to do."
Instead of taking a drop Woods took a wedge and blasted through the rock, causing
the ball to squirt sideways and advance about 30 yards. He managed to hit the
green and two-putt for bogey, but winced on every shot after that.
He grabbed his left wrist after his approach into No. 18 and didn't see the ball
land four feet from the hole for a birdie.
"It's
not my wrist, it's my whole arm," Woods said before heading off to the fitness
trailer. "It's just a little stinger, a pinched nerve somewhere. It don't have
the strength I normally have. They'll fix it. I should be all right."
Ralph Simpson, a physical therapist in the fitness trailer, said it was a brachial
plexsus traction injury -- also known as a stinger, which is compounded by a neck
strain.
He said
Woods would be treated over the next two days with motion exercises and ice treatments.
There may be no fixing
the club; the grooves were flattened by the impact of the rock.
"It
was an interesting shot," Woods said. "Those are times when you just have to accept
the shot and know it is going to hurt," he said. "Go ahead and hit, and at least
make it count. It's like being a wide receiver going up the middle. You know the
guy is going to lay you out, but at least catch the ball."
The only other shot more unusual than that came from Estes. His tears from a touching
memorial service for Stewart were barely dry when he arrived on No. 10 tee, the
starting point for the day, and decided to pay his own tribute to Stewart.
He reached for the putter
and rapped his opening "drive" a whopping 16 feet -- about the length of the putt
Stewart made in June to win the U.S. Open. From there, Estes hit 3-wood and wound
up with a double bogey -- and no regrets.
"A
lot of people, I'm sure, were surprised and didn't know what I was doing," said
Estes, who was at even-par for the day. "As I walked back to the bag, I just said,
'That was for Payne.' "
Because no one took Stewart's place in the field of top 30 money-winners, Duffy
Waldorf played alone. He decorated every one of his balls with colorful inscriptions
about Stewart. One had a cross with the words, "In a better place" written next
to it.
All the players
wore a black ribbon tied to their hats or shirts, and some attached a tartan to
their bags.
Fred
Funk, Carlos Franco and Steve Pate were at 5-under. Nick Price was among those
another stroke back. David Duval, paired with Woods for only the second time on
tour, hit two balls in the water on the front side and finished 2-under.
Scores, however, were relative.
The gallery was subdued,
perhaps sensing the somber mood of the players.
"There
were times out there today I felt like I was on the verge of tears," said Justin
Leonard, who was at 2-under.
There was no avoiding tears this morning during a chilling tribute to Stewart,
highlighted by a lone bagpiper emerging from the fog while playing a Scottish
tune called, "Going Home."
"Once
we got through that, getting out on the golf course was good," Funk said. "But
at the same time, I could not forget that Payne wasn't there."
Tom Lehman talked about the family that is the PGA Tour during an informal dinner
Wednesday night, and he spoke and prayed during the memorial service this morning.
Then he had to play, no
small task.
"There
were not a lot of highs out there," he said after finishing even-par. "You tried
to do your best, but even-par was the best I could do. It's going to be tough
to come back on Saturday."
Love wondered how he could play at all.
After the service, he walked across the practice green when Leonard, searching
for anything to say to break the ice, asked Love when he was going to Orlando.
"I might just go in a little
while," Love told him.
Instead, he summoned enough strength to play and turned in the lowest score of
a sad, sometimes spooky, day. It was important to get one round behind them, but
the process will start over again on Saturday when he comes off another emotional
service and faces 27 holes on the golf course.
Still, Love says believes that's where they should be.
"The
focus is not on us, not on the tournament and not on the scores," he said. "It's
on the loss of a lot of fathers and husbands."
