Tiger Struggling at the Memorial

I understand that not everyone is insane like me and thusly, can't get into a playoff between Steve Stricker, Steve Marino, and Tim Clark at the Crowne Plaza. But this weekends Memorial has pull to it. The reason is quite simple. Tiger Woods is playing. I don't care what tournament it is, when Tiger plays- the world watches.

Currently, Tiger is tied for 24th going into the weekend at -1. This coming after a first round 69 on Thursday and a rough +2- 74 yesterday. The score was his worst in two years. Talk about reeving up the engines for Bethpage in two weeks. Woods missed all over the place yesterday. Not in terms of Fairways (he only missed two of those), but he struggled to his greens. Two of his biggest mistakes came on the fifth and eighteenth hole. On 18, he went long and found the rough. On the fifth (a nasty par 5), Wood's ball found water. To add insult to injury, he missed a gimme putt for par.

The bad round is interesting considering the course. The Memorial, located in Dublin Ohio and designed by the great Jack Nicklaus, was criticized last year for being too tough. Kenny Perry won last years Memorial with the highest winning score in 23 years. Quietly, I would imagine this would make Jack happy. Nicklaus designed the course with the intent to have it play with "U.S Open difficulty". It was Jack's hope to someday have his tournament considered the "fifth major." But even Nicklaus agree that last years course was too tough. He agreed to trim the jungle-like roughs. He wouldn't budge on the greens, but what do you expect? It is Jack.

The reason I include that little history lesson is to extenuate the point that Tiger's awful round comes at a most peculiar point. Here's a course that was actually made easier by the powers at be and Woods can't figure it out. I guess that's why Golf is great.

Elsewhere on the Memorial leader board, Jonathan Byrd and Jim Furyk lead the pack at -7. Mike Weir and Mark Wilson both are a shot back at -6 and Ryuji Imada and Matt Bettencourt land at -5. Also, after last weeks unheralded meltdown on the second playoff hole at the Crowne Plaza, Steve Marino is near the top at -4, good for a 7th place tie.

Tiger tees off at 11:42 this morning. It'll have to be a heck of a comeback for him to even sniff the top on Sunday.

-Jordan Lauterbach