Tiger Woods, golf's biggest star, will be getting some extra beauty sleep when the British Open opens at Muirfield on Thursday. The world's No. 1 golfer will tee off at 2:45 p.m. along with Louis Oosthuizen and Graeme McDowell, according to reports. Woods has never been paired with either player on a weekday of a major tournament.
While all eyes tend to be on Woods whether he's on or off the course, those eyes will be especially trained on him this week as he attempts to prove his elbow is no longer an impediment to world-class play.
Woods was battling the injury at the U.S. Open, which he performed poorly in. At the time he downplayed the injury's severity, and is still doing so heading into the British Open, but has opened up more about how it affected him.
"It didn't feel good. It didn't feel good, especially in the rough,'' Woods said. "That rough was dense and it was lush. You go from whatever it is, let's say 100-some-odd miles an hour to virtually zero. And that was the tough part about it. I really couldn't get through it. And it put a lot of torque on it and it hurt."
In typical Woods fashion however, he offered a simple solution as to how he could have avoided the elbow issues in the rough.
"Conversely, just stay out of the damn thing. Put it in the fairway and put it on the green and make your putts. It's not like I was drawing bad lies on those tee boxes. You just have to stay out of it.''
In the other top pairing for the British Open's opening days, Scottish Open winner Phil Mickelson will be paired with world No.2 Rory McIlroy and Hideki Matsuyama. Another interesting grouping will consist of PGA elder statesmen Nick Faldo, Fred Couples and Tom Watson.
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