Curtis shot 35, 36, 32, and 37 on the par 35 back 9, and 37, 36, 38, and 32 on the front 9, par 36. I'm sure you saw plenty of player interviews, all of whom mentioned that you had to get your birdies in on the front 9, because the back 9 was very difficult.
If the forecaddies on Thursday had managed to find Tiger's tee shot off #1, I'd say Tiger would have a had a much better chance, if only mentally, of winning, and we wouldn't be having this silly discussion.
Tournament Stats: Front Nine (Par 36): Avg. 37.07 Back Nine (Par 35): Avg. 37.72.
The back nine was playing 1.6 strokes harder than the front.
I just don't understand this compulsion to want to believe that Tiger is in a slump.
He's got 4 wins this year, nothing lower than a 20th place finish, his scoring average is lower than any year but 2000... there's nothing in his game to indicate he's dropped off his performance level at all. Give the guy a friggin' break. He's not Superman. He's just a golfer, subject to all the whims that every golfer suffers. Add to that the fact that his ball is outmoded (I believe he's even switched to the Nike ONE ball instead of the TW ball). A string of four or five majors is just really too small a sample size to make any wild conclusions. And in those majors, he's placed 4th, 20th, 15th, 2nd, and 28th in last year's British fiasco, where he uncorked that 81 in nasty conditions.
Plus, everyone used the word 'quirky' enough to describe the golf course, that it was pretty evident they were unhappy with balls landing in the middle of the fairway and kicking off omnipresent mounds into the rough. You can't just erase quirks and lukcy bounces from the equation in golf, but all the naysayers want to do just that when it comes to Tiger, as if he should be able to manipulate physics as well as play golf.