Tiger and the one that got away

Tiger Woods will look back on the 2011 Masters as a missed opportunity to close in on Jack Nicklaus’ major record. Picture Fran Caffrey/www.golffile.ie.Tiger Woods will look back on the 75th Masters as the major that got away.

At least, that’s the view of Padraig Harrington who wasn’t surprised to see the former world No 1 make a title charge before finishing up tied for fourth.

Harrington said: “He is always going to have a great chance at Augusta and he had it again. If he looks back at the week, Tiger will think this is one that got away.”

While Woods closed with a 67, he missed a string of putts coming down the stretch and finished four behind Charl Schwartzel.  Yet Harrington reckons it was more a case of bad luck than bad putting.

He said: “Rather than putting so badly he didn’t have a good week with a bit of luck. That’s not going to be a consolation for him.  It looked like it was more a week of good putts not going in for him.”

Harrington will return to the fairways in next week’s Volvo China Open and then take two weeks off before returning to the US for the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, where Rory McIlroy is the defending champion, and The Players at Sawgrass.

A neck injury ruined Harrington’s Masters, where he missed the cut. And he is keen to get back out on tour, despite a disastrous putting display at Augusta National.

The Dubliner had 68 putts over the two rounds and hopes it was his neck injury that caused him to misread so many greens.

“I will never truly know why,” he said. “I will have to do better on the greens, there is no doubt. I won’t truly be able to tell if the neck caused me to putt badly. It caused me to struggle the first day and cost me numerous shots. It distracted me and all that sort of stuff.

“It’s one of those weeks that not a huge amount can be learned from because of the fact that there was an outside influence that we don’t know how much of an influence it had.

“It is not like I can turn around and say I was hanging my neck 5 degrees, so I over read every putt. It just doesn’t work like that.”