Tiger Woods Shoots 69 (lol) To Get Into Contention

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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.

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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.

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…

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