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But the pins were in more difficult spots on the weekend, harder to get close to with long irons. The wind picked up on Sunday, too, which Woods found out early when the safe 3-wood he went to on the 489-yard par-4 second hole almost ended up short in a fairway bunker.
It added up to a flawed game plan and yet another championship gone awry.
"I was in position to do what I wanted to do and then turn home and shoot maybe 1- or 2-under par on the back nine and I would have posted an 8- or 9-under par," Woods said. "And I thought that was going to be the number to win the golf tournament. I thought 8 was a playoff, 9 was to win outright. Unfortunately, I just didn't do it."
Of little consolation to Woods was that he moved up to No. 2 in the world rankings he used to dominate with his tie for third, a 3-over 73 that was his best finish in a major since he lost to Y.E. Yang in the 2009 PGA Championship.
But he remains winless in the last 17 majors, stuck in his longest drought of the tournaments he covets most. He's still four majors short of tying Nicklaus, exactly where he was four years ago at Torrey Pines when it seemed a foregone conclusion he would someday be crowned the greatest golfer ever.
He's pretty much given up trying to explain it. Now he philosophizes about it.
"It's part of golf. We all go through these phases," Woods said. "Some people, it lasts entire careers. Others are a little bit shorter. Even the greatest players to ever play have all gone through little stretches like this. When your playing careers last 40 and 50 years, you're going to have stretches like this."
There may be some truth to that, even if it's hard to imagine Woods playing 40 or 50 years.
Then again, there was a time it would have been hard to imagine him in the stretch he's in now.
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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