Tiger Woods misses opportunities in opening even-par 71 at British Open

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Things didn’t look good when Tiger Woods drove up to the clubhouse for Thursday’s opening round of the 147th British Open with an extra passenger — therapeutic tape on the upper reaches of his back.

Considering his history of surgeries to his spine, a sense of dread swept over Carnoustie and across various social media platforms.

Turned out Tiger just woke up with a stiff neck, which didn’t alarm him since he’s dealt with aches and pains throughout his career. He’s worn braces and bandages before, but this time his healing mechanism was visible.

It also was a foretelling sign for his round, as Woods patched together an opening even-par 71 that left him five shots out of the lead set by Kevin Kisner. While Woods said his neck bothered him a little bit here and there, he was more pained by missed opportunities that kept him from breaking par.

On a spectacular day by the North Sea, where sunglasses, short sleeves and sunscreen took to the ancient ground under bright skies, Woods sparkled out of the gate with a birdie at the first and another at the fourth but didn’t take advantage of a big drive on the par-5 sixth and settled for par.

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Still, with his game on point, he made the turn at 2 under — the first time he was under par when he made the turn in the first round of a major since the 2013 PGA Championship.

But then the winds picked up on the inward nine and Woods ran into a few spots of bother, starting when he drove his tee shot on the 10th into a pot bunker and made bogey. He bounced back with a birdie from 35 feet on 11 but then had a sloppy three-putt and made bogey on the 13th. Suddenly he was in full-out scrambling mode, and most of his first putts were coming up short of the hole. He made another bogey on No. 15 when his tee shot rolled into a pot bunker, and he kept the rest of his scorecard clean with solid par saves on 14, 16 and 17. His 71 was one of the better rounds in the afternoon wave.

“I played better than what the score indicates,” Woods said, a familiar refrain this year. “I had two 8-irons into both par-5s today, and I end up with par on both of those. If I just clean up those two holes and play them the way I'm supposed to play them with 8-iron in my hand, I think I'd probably have the best round in the afternoon wave.

“So it certainly could have been a little bit better.”

No one was better than Kisner, who needed just 22 putts to take the lead with a 66. Three players, including Tony Finau, were at 67. There was plenty of red on the yellow scoreboards, including Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Zach Johnson and Justin Thomas each at 69. In all, 31 players broke par.

Still, Carnoustie was not a pushover. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson shot 76, Phil Mickelson a 73. Defending champion Jordan Spieth ruined his round with a double bogey and two bogeys in his last four holes and shot 72.

While the forecast is bound to change — rain is expected to replace the abundant sunshine of the first day for the second round — Woods feels there’s no need to abandon his game plan. He’s five shots behind and knows triple bogeys lurk everywhere, so being on the cautious side is not a bad thing.

With the ground brick-hard and golf balls running out 50, 60, 70 yards, Woods wore out his irons when hitting tee shots in the first round, opting to use the driver just once and his 3-wood once. Sounds like he’ll do so again in Friday’s second round, which he begins at 5:20 a.m. ET.

“I'm just playing to my spots,” Woods said. “And if the wind allows me to be more aggressive, then, obviously, I can get it down there. But today with the wind coming out of the south/southeast, it didn't allow that.

“This is just a really hard golf course. These fairways are very small. They're hard to hit right now. They're so fast, and they're so moundy. A couple of my 6-irons went about 240. It's hard for people to understand it, but it's just the nature of this golf course.”