Tiger On Saturday: "I was really close to putting it together"

Doug Ferguson on Tiger's third round 68 that sounded identical to his second round.

You can see the highlights here courtesy of ESPN:

Bob Harig confirms the similarity to Friday's round, not necessarily a bad thing since that round showed glimmers of hope.

By the time Saturday's action was over, Woods was tied for 38th and nine shots behind Briny Baird. Baird, seeking his first PGA Tour victory in 12 years on tour, shot a 3-under 68 on Saturday for a two-stroke lead over Els and Paul Casey.

"I was really close to putting it together," Woods said, noting that he let good birdie chances at the 17th and 18th holes slip by before birdies on one and two. "It's getting better. It's getting better. I'm improving day by day, which is good. Obviously tomorrow I need to improve a lot and make the putts and post a really low one tomorrow."

Jeff Rude says Woods is "making progress under Sean Foley."

For the second day in a row, Woods hit 14 greens in regulation, as well as six fairways, and putted well. He has made 11 birdies in the past two rounds, including five Saturday.

The unusual part of the growing pains is this habit of missing shots left of his target with the retooled swing. His mandate to former coach Hank Haney was to give instruction that would take left out at all costs; hence, his misses went right.

So this left-rough business is a different deal, one that would seem to be Needed Fix No. 1.
Why left?

“The body starts rotating, and obviously the hands chase,” Woods said. “So if I keep the body rotating, then I’ll be fine.”

Steve Elling points out that Tiger ended up playing just behind the leaders during their front nine play and they couldn't help themselves.

Buried in the middle of the pack, Woods was in the first group off the 10th tee, which meant he played his last nine holes of the third round directly behind the trio of leaders. Curious as the rest of the planet as to how Woods was playing, Ernie Els and Paul Casey took more than a few looks backwards as Woods hit shots into certain holes.

"What does that say?" Casey said, squinting to read a distant leaderboard. "Four under? Not bad."

And in case you were wondering, Tiger did make it to the Stanford game according to the school's tweet. He even made it into the locker room at halftime.