The Open 2018: Not quite vintage Tiger Woods at Carnoustie but you wouldn’t be able to tell

Woods finished on level par but the question that he could contend is still an open one

It wasn’t a round that saw him take control of The Open, setting his adversaries an impossible uphill battle from day one like he used to in his pomp.

It wasn’t even him capitalising on a good start to lay down a marker on day when the bigger names didn’t seem to want to come to the party.

But following Tiger Woods around a course, and especially this course, remains an experience like nothing else in golf. Still the most popular, still the best-known, still the man who changed the sport.

The 42 year-old received an almost embarrassingly huge cheer as he strode calmly onto the first tee box on Thursday afternoon. By that point, the majority of the field’s best-known stars had already been round or were on the course and so even on the far-flung 10^th hole the roar to signal Woods’ arrival was clearly heard and received with a wry smile and a nod. “That’ll be Tiger.”

Woods’ huge reception was almost performatively matched moments later as the home crowd realised Scottish hope Russell Knox, playing in the same trio, probably merited more of a home advantage. But as soon as Woods sunk a birdie on the first green, coinciding with a politely-applauded bogey for Knox, there was no doubt who everybody wanted not only to see, but to see succeed.

The undulating terrain surrounding the first green at Carnoustie forms something akin to a natural amphitheatre, spectators rising around the makeshift stage, vividly verdant and glowingly different from the rest of the sun-scorched course.

(AP (AP)

And at times it was like theatre, following Woods. And like all the best-written works of the stage there was a feeling, an urge, that the paying public were invested in their star, desperate for their hero to win out. This was no different for Woods, the man who trailed half of Carnoustie around 18 holes with him as spectators ditched other groups to swarm to the three-time Open winner.

John Inverdale, watching Padraig Harrington miss a putt on the ninth, noted on the radio that the stands had emptied and that in the distance he could make out a throng. “Somewhere among that group, you’d have to imagine, is Tiger Woods,” he ruminated, not incorrectly.

With many of those bigger names now safely in the clubhouse or working through their final holes, it was a twist of fortune - or pandering to American television, if you’re feeling cynical - that left Woods as the sole attraction of the late afternoon session.

But it likely wouldn’t have mattered if Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson were ballroom dancing on the 15th fairway or if Sandy Lyle was doing backflips on the 18th green, such is the gravitational pull Tiger has. It is as if his name is on the leaderboard in capitals and surrounded by flashing lights, vaguely illuminating those around him but leaving the rest in shadow.

Woods finished the day on level par (PA)

“It feels like we’re in an abandoned wilderness, there’s nobody here,” John Murray said, while trailing Brooks Koepka, on Radio 5 Live as, half a golf course away, Woods approached the ninth. It was here that Woods’ day began to turn against him, and he faced his first sticky situation of the day on that final green of his outward trip, only to drop it in the hole from 10 yards right-to-left and save par having been in the bunker.

It could have been his frightful flirtation with danger that got him back on track but as the conditions got less friendly, Woods began to struggle for quite the same level of control he’d shown on the front nine.

As the wind picked up, it rippled the white shirt that protruded from behind his coral blue sleeveless sweater. Woods is one of those who suffered most for the extra gusts as he found bunkers either side of the turn and then three-putted on 13 to drop the shot he had made up at 11. Another dalliance with the sand meant failing to pick up a shot on the friendly hole 14, where so many before him had found birdies or better. On 15 he was back on the beach and it cost him a shot, sending him back to level par and no longer among the contenders.

On 16 his tee shot dragged right into the wispy long grass but he saved for par, and by this point, as the sun began to glow orange and dip towards the chimneys of Carnoustie’s wee town, those loyal fanatics that had stalked Woods’ every step gradually began to peel off in search of sustenance and hydration.

At the 17th he missed a birdie putt from somewhere near Edinburgh but then holed a far more reasonable two-footer to stay level and then it was down to the 18th, where those loyal aficionados that had remained enclosed him with their warmth. Another par followed, level on the day and an underwhelming trip back from a front nine that has everyone involved in this year’s championships salivating.

What if Tiger could contend? What if he can win it again? That intrigue wore off as a long day stretched out further and further but it still remains, you just need to look a little harder to find it.

The only certainty when it comes to Tiger Woods is that there will be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people ready to follow along for that search.