Pebble Beach, Calif. - There was no curtain call Sunday for Tiger Woods. Just curtains.
The three-time U.S. Open champion, who had flashed considerable portions of his majestic game just a day earlier, couldn't produce an encore in the final round of the 110th Open, flailing away at every turn for a 4-over-par 75 at Pebble Beach Golf Links, his second worst closing effort in this championship.
Woods, 34, who a decade ago blew away this course and the field for a record 15-stroke victory, this time blew himself out of the running for a 15th major title with a series of mis-hits and mental errors. He finished tied for fourth with Phil Mickelson at 3-over 287, which happens to be the score his nearest challengers mustered in the 2000 championship while he raced far ahead to a record 12-under 272.
"It's disappointing because I started off so poorly again," said Woods, who bogeyed the first and fourth holes and needed an 18-footer to save par at the third. "I really didn't hit too many bad shots. I just left myself in the wrong spots."
Making just his fifth start of the year after his self-imposed sabbatical, Woods managed to hit only eight fairways and nine greens, his poorest performance of the week in both categories. But he compounded his troubles with three crucial mental errors. They were: choosing 3-wood off the tee at the par-5 sixth, which trundled into the beach abutting Stillwater Cove; firing at the flagstick at No. 10, which came up short in the hazard; and the selection of 4-iron into the par-3 12th when his instincts told him to hit 5-iron. Bogeys resulted in all three instances.
"You take away those three mental errors, and I'm right there. I'm tied for the lead," he said glumly.
Poor decisions aside, Woods has to acknowledge that poor driving continues to be the culprit in his cratering ability to score in crunch time. It cost him a bogey at the opening hole, another at the fourth - with an iron, no less - and again at the sixth.
He birdied the 92-yard seventh - the shortest par 3 in championship history - from 20 feet, his first of the day, but his approach at the next came up short, and he three-putted from the apron for his fourth bogey in eight holes. It was so unlike vintage Woods - the vintage Woods who emerged from his slumber Saturday to shoot 66 and get into contention - and the breakdown just continued.
He knocked his second into the hazard at the 10th with sand wedge in his hands and gouged it out to 12 feet, only to miss the greasy-fast putt. As the ball zipped past the hole, Woods waved at it in disgust and resignation.
That he would bogey the 12th was poignantly ironic; it was his sixth bogey of the afternoon - as many as he made in the entire championship in 2000 when his game was unquestionably at its zenith.
Woods' initial reaction to his finish was that he couldn't take much positive out of the day. He softened on that later. "I feel like I can play now," he allowed. "Yeah, I got a feel for my game, the shape of my shots, what I'm working on, and the two major championships I finished I had a chance to win both of them. So it's not too bad."
Not too bad. But not good enough, either.
Dave Shedloski is a freelance writer whose work frequently appears on USGA Web sites.