Tiger Woods Shoots 69 (lol) To Get Into Contention

Tiger birdied the 18th to post 69. Very nice. All things considered, it was another solid step in the right direction for The Fusion.

Tiger split the fairway with a roasted 2-iron on 1. I mention this because he’s long had a peculiar case of the first tee jitters. Not today — fairway, green, solid par.

First hiccup came on two. Came up short on the difficult par-3, hit a mediocre bunker shot and failed to convert the putt.

He bounced back with a bomb on 3.

The opening 3 holes at Bay Hill play as the toughest opening 3-hole stretch on TOUR outside of the majors; getting through at even is a success.

He then birdied both par-5s on the front, 4 and 6, before bogeying the 8 and going out in 1-under 35.

Turned it up a notch on the back. Tiger parred 10 then dropped a short-iron to 10 feet on 2. Made the putt, 2-under for the day and 6-under for the tourney.

Tiger hit it well on the back but was playing pretty conservatively, hitting approaches to the middle of greens, and making pars on the 12th – 15th.

Then on 16 he found the fairway bunker, over 200 yards out, behind a lip, and did this.

That made it move.

Two putts from there got us to 3-under for the day.

At the difficult par-3 17th, Tiger painted the flagstick but came up a few feet short. A bad break left a fried egg lie and another dropped shot.

He PIPED another 3-wood on 18 to sand wedge range.

Hit a wedge to around 12 feet, then canned it in front of a MASSIVE crowd on 18.

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Tiger’s at 7-under and currently 5 off the lead. He’ll probably be about 5 or 6 shots back heading into Sunday. He’s come back to win from that many strokes here before.

See you in red…