Tiger Woods when finishing the primary spherical of country Open at seven over par, at risk of missing the cut. “There area unit too several guys that area unit enjoying well,” he said, “and I’m simply not one in every of them.”CreditCreditPaul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty pictures


PORTRUSH, European country — It had been a rough begin for Tiger Woods at this British Open, and as he was putt on the eighth hole for what may need been his initial birdie on weekday, a rainbow appeared over the Atlantic Ocean.

Woods squinted at the road of the 30-foot putt, wiped the blade of his putter, self-addressed the ball and lost.

Sometimes a rainbow is simply a rainbow.

Woods has long been an exponent of Northern Ireland’s nice courses and of the choice to come to a region of the planet wherever golf is each thought and reasonable to the overall public.

But the maximum amount as Woods needed to honor the occasion and generate an equivalent reasonably communion with the general public that he did whereas winning the Masters in Apr, his 43-year-old body and Portrush’s unforgiving layout wouldn’t permit it.

“I didn’t do abundant out there these days,” Woods aforesaid later. “I hit a great deal of lost shots, they were all left. Wasn’t touch it solid. Everything was off the heel. simply attempting to scrape it around.”

The best he may manage was a seven-over-par seventy eight within the gap spherical at Royal Portrush, that was conjointly the primary British Open spherical in European country since Portrush hosted the event in 1951.