As he waited to hit his shot onto the green, Woods bent over and suppressed a cough because his opponent, Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño, was preparing to hit.
After his final-round collapse at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Woods traveled to Florida to spend the week with his two children, who were sick. “Once they bring it home,” Woods said in a voice thick with congestion, “we all get it.”
Between coughing jags and fits of expectoration, Woods, the fifth seed in his bracket, used the 12th-seeded Fernández-Castaño as an antibody for his ailing game by grinding out a 1-up victory at Dove Mountain. “I don’t think either one of us had our best stuff today,” Woods said, adding, “It was the epitome of match play.”
On this day, it was almost an upset for a higher seed like Woods to advance. Among the first-round losers were the world’s No. 1 player, Luke Donald, the defending champion who fell to Ernie Els, 5 and 4; Robert Rock, a No. 15 seed who dispatched a No. 2, Adam Scott, 2 and 1; and Y. E. Yang, who defeated a No. 3 seed, Graeme McDowell, 2 and 1.
Woods, who plays Nick Watney next, lost the first two holes, took his first lead on the eighth and had to make a 7-foot par putt at No. 12 to avoid going 2 down. He won the 15th and 16th holes to go 1 up.
After missing a 14-foot birdie putt that would have ended the match at the 17th hole, Woods sealed the victory by draining a 10-footer for par on 18 after blasting out of a bunker.
“We both made our share of mistakes, there’s no doubt about that,” Woods said. “But somehow I was able to move on.”
Woods hit 9 of 14 fairways, and some of his misses left him with interesting recovery shots. On the par-5 second hole, Woods’s drive stopped between a rock and a yellow-flowered bush. Before grabbing a club, he stood behind the bush, reached over and tried to make a few imaginary swings.
Dismissing that option, Woods took an iron and tried to hit a steep left-handed draw. He advanced the ball 39 yards, hit his third shot in the primary rough in front of the green and lost the hole when Fernández-Castaño sank a 22-foot putt for birdie.
“I’ve got to hit the ball a little better than I did,” Woods said, adding, “I’ve got to get a better feel for my distances out here.”
Fernández-Castaño said before the match that he considered Woods beatable, which seemed a few rubbish loads short of trash talking considering Woods has not won an official event in more than two years. The comment drew a terse rejoinder from Woods — “I feel he’s beatable, too” — and appeared to initiate a chill that the 70-degree temperatures could not thaw.
On the front nine, the only interplay between them was when Woods picked one of Fernández-Castaño’s tees off the ground and handed it to him.
They exchanged a handshake and pleasantries after the match. Woods attributed the lack of interaction to their see-saw battle. “It was just the nature of the match,” Woods said. “It was just like, boy, it was tough.”
Woods received a few putting tips during Tuesday’s practice round from Steve Stricker, who pointed out an alignment problem and also that he was taking his putter back too far inside.
Stricker, a 2-and-1 winner over Kevin Na, said Woods was putting better by the end of Tuesday’s round. But on Wednesday, Woods took up where he had left off at Pebble Beach, missing a few putts inside five feet.
“I hit a couple of bad putts, I’m not going to deny that,” said Woods, who had a hard time reading the greens. “I talked myself out of probably two or three putts that, you know, I hit it and if I would have gone with my first instinct, I would have made it.”
The putt he had on 18 to end the match was not easy, but Woods did not try to make it harder than it was. “Just trust it and see what happens,” he said. “And I poured it in there.”
Woods received the second-loudest cheer during the day’s first-tee introductions after the former University of Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson, who walked as an honorary observer with Watney, a 5-and-4 winner over Darren Clarke.
The crowds that followed Woods and Fernández-Castaño around the course were large, if not huge, and unabashedly pro-Woods. As Fernández-Castaño’s approach shot on the fourth hole, a par 4, was tracking toward the right greenside bunker, the fans shouted, “Get in there!”
After five tense hours, to Woods’s immense relief, Fernández-Castaño was out of here.
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