By Ed Osmond
ST ANDREWS, Scotland (Reuters) – Tiger Woods made a dismal start to his opening round at the British Open as he carded two double-bogeys on the front nine at St Andrews on Thursday to slump to five-over par.
The American 15-times major champion, who has won the Open twice at the home of golf, looked out of sorts from the moment he found the water on the par-four first hole and started with a six on his card.
Bogeys at the third and fourth holes took Woods to four over par and he grimaced after failing to hole a short putt on the seventh green to rack up another six.
He did sink a six-foot putt to birdie the ninth, grinning broadly as he acknowledged warm applause from the crowd.
Woods, who returned to competitive golf in April at the Masters 14 months after suffering serious injuries in a car crash, missed last month’s U.S. Open to prepare for the British Open.
But the 46-year-old looked uncomfortable as he trudged around the Old Course and, already 13 shots adrift of early leader Cameron Young, needs to make up considerable ground if he is to avoid missing the halfway cut.
Woods was lying tied 145th in the 156-man field midway through his first round.
(Reporting by Ed Osmond; Editing by Ken Ferris)
