Sick Game: Tiger Vomits But Completes Course, Still In Last Place

Battling illness that included fever, coughing, and vomiting, Tiger Woods managed to shoot his best round at The Hero World Challenge on Saturday, but was not able to pull himself out of last place of the elite eighteen player field.

Woods was noticeably ill on the course, vomiting in the third round at Isleworth, and sweating profusely on the mildly warm, sunny Florida day. Despite his illness, Woods managed a decent game, finishing off his round with a striped 300-yard drive at the 18th to set up a birdie and a 3-under-par 69.

After his round, Woods was barely audible, his voice hoarse and quiet, as he talked for a few minutes.

“It wasn’t easy and I fought hard. That’s about all I had. I wasn’t doing too good at the beginning, but I thought I would be all right. It finally broke on the front nine.”

Woods had a 102-degree fever on Friday, but thought he might be past the problems. Instead, they got worse. Woods looked terrible on the driving range, and several times stopped and bent over as if to vomit. He nonetheless birdied the first hole then added a bogey and birdie on the front side to turn in 35. This was not a game that Woods wanted to withdraw from, for both professional and personal reasons, who is at 216, even par. He has had a rough season with his back rehab, but said he felt the need to try to play.

“I like to compete. If I can go, I can go. I’ll give it everything I have. This is different. I wasn’t in pain. Just was a bit under the weather. Initially, I didn’t have the explosiveness. I was just pretty slow. As the round built on, I was starting to feel better and started hitting the ball around my normal numbers.”

Despite turning it around, Woods is 20 strokes back of tournament leader Jordan Spieth, who has a seven-shot lead, according to ESPN.

Despite the disappointing game, Woods had his own victory of sorts.

After a year lost to injury and ineffectiveness, Woods could look ahead to 2015 with optimism, view the future without getting caught up in where he finished this week. He was thankful for a game without back pain.

“First things first: playing tournament golf without being in pain, without having to call my physio every day or having to put out fires with my body, swing-wise. It was nice to be able to hit the ball the way I did this week.”