Augusta, Ga.
I've written about Tiger, Rory, Spieth, Hoffman and Bubba so far this week, all available at startribune.com.
Wtih the blog, I like to be more informal, just to tell you what I got to see on the course.
The highlights:
-The fans (patrons!) I was around on Thursday reacted to Tiger Woods like he was in his prime. He generated the biggest galleries and drew the biggest cheers. I was stunned at how good his short game looked, given his troubles earlier this year, but he's having his old dispersion problems. In short, he doesn't know which way his misses will head.
His flailing shot from behind a tree on 17 was classic, old-school Tiger stuff. Fun to see even if he's in no condition to contend. He may, however, make the cut, which is more than I expected from him this week. And he has continued to play the nice guy, both in interviews and on the course. He put his arm around someone else's caddy walking to the putting green today, and was laughing and joking. I don't know if that's good for his competitive spirit, but it's interesting.
-Phil Mickelson still crushes his driver, and shot a 70 to tie for 12th.
-Rory McIlroy is seven shots behind Jordan Spieth. That's not insurmountable...unless Spieth is going to have a breakthrough week and run away from the field. McIlroy made two big mistakes when I was following him - hooking his drive into the creek on No. 2 and settling for par on a par-5, and having a chip roll back to his feet on No. 6, and salvaging bogey.
