SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Tyron Smith Jersey . - By the time Tiger Woods made the turn in the opening round of a year that means so much for so many reasons, he had already stubbed one chip and bladed another. Things had gotten so bad that he twice took to using the putter from well off the green, lest he mess up his day even more.He hadnt given up, though, and neither had the fans, who swarmed loudly around the Phoenix Open in record numbers. As he walked the gauntlet between the nines, they pleaded with Woods to do something, anything, to make both his day and theirs a little better.You got this, Tiger! one yelled. Go get em on the back nine! another shouted out.Two brilliant shots that brought back memories of the Tiger of old helped Woods do just that Thursday. They also helped him avert the kind of disaster that might have been felt by the Woods camp long after the PGA Tour leaves the Arizona desert.The 2-over 73 wasnt exactly what Woods had in mind when he decided to begin his year with a trip to a tournament he hasnt played in 14 years. Not on an overcast day where there were low scores to be had on TPC Scottsdale.But it could have been worse, much worse. And for that Woods could be happy, despite a short game that looked more like it belonged to a tourist playing the course, not the greatest player of his era.If he needed something to convince himself he could still play after injuries and yet another swing change, he could hang his hat on playing the last six holes in 3-under par.Its not the first time I have gone through this, Woods said. It takes time. Its just a frustrating thing where I just need to get through competitive rounds. I need to get rounds under my belt and get a feel for it.Its also not the first time Woods has expressed similar thoughts. Anyone who has followed Woods in recent years has heard him say the same kind of things about trusting his swing, and working his way through the rust, but its now been a long seven years since he last won a major championship.And whether Woods will allow himself to believe it or not, his latest problems might be tougher to fix than a missing tooth.Driving the ball sideways is one thing, and Woods did hit it wayward a few times Thursday in only his second competitive tournament in six months. But resorting to hit chips with a 4-iron because you dont trust yourself with a wedge in hand is almost unheard of in the top echelon of professional golf.Im just having a hard time finding the bottom, Woods said. Because of my old pattern, I was so steep on it, that I have a new grind on my wedge and sometimes its hard to trust. This is a similar grind I used to use back in the early 2000s, but its a different grind. Some of my shots were into the green with tight pins, and either Ill flop it or bump it, one of the two. I chose to bump it.Got that? There will be a quiz at the Masters, where tentative chippers dont last long around tightly mown collection areas and undulating greens.If this was an unusual place for Woods to begin his season, it wasnt altogether unfamiliar. He was here under much different circumstances in 2001, where he was coming off three major championship wins in a row and getting ready to go for the Tiger Slam in the Masters.He opened with a 65 that year, but that wasnt the big story. It came in the second round when a remarkable streak of shooting par or better over 52 straight rounds came to an end when Woods struggled to a 73.Few believed what they saw that day, and Woods would go on to win the Masters for his fourth straight major. Hes now won 14 of them, the last coming at Torrey Pines in 2008.Contrast that to this year when the 73 marked the fifth consecutive round on the PGA Tour that Woods hasnt broken par. It was also the first time he opened a year with a score over par since turning pro nearly two decades ago.An iron shot to tap-in eagle on the par-5 13th might give him some hope of better times ahead. So will the drive to 20 feet on the par-4 17th hole.But on this day the only thing resembling the Tiger Woods of old were the huge galleries following him at all times, on a day when an estimated record crowd of 118,461 came out to watch his season debut.If nothing else, Tiger Woods still knows how to draw a crowd.____Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org or http://twitter.com/timdahlberg Dak Prescott Jersey . Torres scored the first goal by an English team in the knockout phase of the Champions League this season when he met Cezar Azpilicuetas cutback in the ninth minute of their first leg match in the last 16. But Chelsea failed to make the most of its counterattacks and the Turkish champions equalized in the second half after gaining in confidence and cutting out their defensive mistakes. Chris Jones Jersey . Their 9-19 record remains identical to the crosstown rivals in Brooklyn and trails both Toronto and Boston in the Atlantic Division. Raymond Felton, their declining point guard, is back on the sideline nursing his third injury of the season. http://www.thecowboysfansmall.com/c-40-cowboys-ezekiel-elliott-jersey.aspx . Vonn had another scary moment at Saturdays World Cup downhill in Val dIsere, ending up clutching her knee in pain after losing her balance and missing a gate. But she gave a reassuring answer shortly afterward, saying no new damage had been done to the surgically repaired knee, and that her plans for the Sochi Olympics were still intact.Anyone who spends 15 years in charge of the Royal & Ancient surely is entitled to at least one mulligan. Peter Dawson took his long before he started the job. "I was playing an American one year at Oxford Golf Club, and he introduced me to this travelling mulligan," Dawson said. "As you know, we dont have them over here. I was 2 down with four to play and on the par-3 15th, I shanked one. So I said to him, Ill have my mulligan now. And with my next shot, I had a hole-in-one. I think he was so rattled that he lost the match. I never allowed myself to take another one. I had to keep my record intact." Dawson is keeping another record rather tidy, somewhat by coincidence. He announced last month that he will retire in September 2015 as secretary of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club and chief executive of The R&A, a business division he wisely created 10 years ago. He will have served 16 years, the same tenure as the three R&A secretaries before him. What sets him apart is coping with perhaps the most challenging times in the clubs 260-year history. He is proud of a central role he played in getting golf back into the Olympics for the first time in more than a century, and Dawson will stay on as head of the International Golf Federation through the Rio Games. One of his favourite moments was gathering British Open champions at St. Andrews in 2000 to celebrate the millennium, an exhibition that brought together the likes of Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Seve Ballesteros on a glorious late afternoon at the home of golf. But the Royal & Ancient game has been moving at warp speed over the last two decades, and Dawson has been in the middle of it. He took over in 1999, about the time Callaway introduced the thin-faced ERC driver with a trampoline effect that was not allowed by USGA, yet approved by the R&A standards. That three-year period of golfs ruling bodies not being on the same page is the one "working mulligan" Dawson would have wanted. Three years later, the R&A and USGA published a "Joint Statement of Principles," and pledged to work more closely together. The most recent example was the decision to publish a new rule in 2016 that will ban the anchored stroke used for long putters -- a putting stroke used to win each oof the four majors over the last three years. Bill Bates Jersey. There remains strife among leading golf organizations over the ban, though Dawson isnt budging. He also has heard plenty of criticism about changes to the Old Course at St. Andrews, seen as sacrilege by purists who believe the R&A is changing golf courses instead of reining in technology. And in September, the R&A Golf Club is to vote on a proposal to allow female members for the first time, which Dawson endorses. The vote is two years after Augusta National invited female members to join for the first time. Was it all enough to make Dawson want to retire? "That was just normal course of business," he said dismissively. "Quite often, the media perception of what is weighing heavily on us is not particularly so." What weighed heaviest on Dawson, and still does, is striking the balance between technology and skill. There is pressure from one corner to slow the golf ball and reduce the size of drivers, and pressure from another corner to make the sport easier at a time when golf participation is in decline. "Keeping the balance right has been the biggest intellectual challenge," Dawson said. He is comfortable that the R&A and USGA got it about right. That will be debated long after Dawson leaves, and it figures to confront the next R&A chief. Dawsons reputation, unlike that of predecessor Sir Michael Bonallack, was built on management more than golf, and it was the right fit for the times. The next R&A chief could be a blend of both. No obvious candidates have emerged in the last month. Asked for the best qualifications, Dawson mentioned someone steeped in the values of golf, with commercial and international experience, and two other attributes -- diplomacy and humility. "One of the things you have to do as a governing body is to treat golf as a sport, as opposed to a business," Dawson said. "Other bodies might put business first because of priorities. The commercial side of what we do is very important to allow us to fulfil the governance role, and you cant lose sight of that. But I view golf first. Business is close. If youre scrambling for finances, its difficult to maintain your principles. So the financial success is important to sport." Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys Wholesale NFL Jerseys Jerseys From China Wholesale NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys Cheap Jerseys ' ' '