PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Have you ever anticipated a can’t-miss meal at a restaurant you’ve been dying to try or gone to a movie that the world has been raving about … and walked away feeling short-changed and disappointed?
Then you know exactly how the masses following the two marquee groupings felt in Thursday’s opening round of the Players Championship.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were playing in the same group for the first time in four years and the first time at the Players in 17 years, and were joined by Rickie Fowler.
Then there was the morning group of Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy.
On a day when 68 players posted rounds under par and the vaunted Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass was as vulnerable as it’s ever been, the six stars in the two power groups combined to shoot a combined 12-over-par.
Woods (even-par), Mickelson (7-over) and Fowler (2-over) combined to shoot 9-over. Spieth (3-over), Thomas (1-over) and McIlroy (1-under ) combined to shoot 3-over.
It all added up to a stunning buzzkill and provided a clichéd moral to the story: Don’t always believe the hype and don’t always judge a book by its cover.
Mickelson, despite temperatures in the mid-80s, was wearing the same long-sleeved, button-down shirt he wore when he and Woods played a practice round together at the Masters, and had the most nightmarish round of all.
Two days after playfully calling out Woods and wondering aloud if “he wants a piece of me’’ in their duel, Mickelson played the worst round he’s posted all year and the worst he’s shot at the Players in 18 years.
Afterward, Mickelson said his energy was low and he completely lacked focus as the round wore on.
“I knew this was going to be an issue; I said it Sunday at Wells Fargo that I was worried about energy this week, and I just kind of ran out at the end,’’ Mickelson said.
Mickelson’s round, which wasn’t very good on the front nine (2-over), went sideways on the back nine.
After he’d climbed back into the round and gotten to even-par with birdies on Nos. 11 and 12, Mickelson double-bogeyed the 14th hole, bogeyed No. 15 and, with a rinsed approach shot, took double on 16.
Then came 17, the famous island green par-3, where Mickelson dumped his wedge shot short of the green and into the water and took another double bogey. That made him a stunning 7-over in a span of four holes.
As for his shirt, which Nick Faldo, on the Golf Channel telecast, skewered him for wearing, Mickelson, providing a bit of humor, said, “This stuff is stretchy. You don’t even know it’s on. Nobody does slightly overweight middle-aged guy better than me and this says exactly who I am. It says that if you can play golf at the highest level, imagine how comfortable it is in the office. It’s very comfortable. I love it.’’
Woods, who was 1-under through 17 holes, ruined what looked like it could be a respectable round when he snap-hooked an iron tee shot into the water to the left to the 18th fairway and took bogey.
“I didn’t want to shoot over par today,’’ Woods said. “I feel like I was playing better than that, like I should have shot something in the 60s.’’
Fowler, with a double bogey on 17, shot a 2-over 73.
“I just never really got anything going,’’ Fowler said. “It kind of seemed like that was the case for everyone in the group.’’
Spieth, ranked No. 4 in the world, never looked like he had his stuff, hitting a ball in the water on three of the first seven holes he played. That’s what intimidated 15-handicap tourists do when they play Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass for the first time.
Thomas, ranked No. 2, never got anything going, and McIlroy was the only player in the group or among the six in the marquee groups to break par.
“Obviously, you see some guys shooting 6-under par or so and know it was out there,’’ McIlroy said. “We did have the opportunity to do that, I just didn’t quite take advantage of it like some of the other guys did. But it’s a long week.’’
It was a long day.
