Tiger Woods is so good, we expect him to win every tournament he enters. When he loses in the second round of the Match Play Championship, it almost feels wrong.
For one day the PGA Tour was relevant again. The most dominant athlete on earth was back, dispatching opponents with ease. What we forgot was, he hasn't played in eight months. Not even a player of Tiger's caliber can knock off rust that fast. So maybe we shouldn't be surprised that Tim Clark beat him 4 & 2 on Thursday in Tucson.
Clark did what you have to do in match play. He never made a mistake. In his first two matches, Clark did not have a single bogey. "I knew I had to play out of my mind to beat him," Clark said. "I'm very proud of the way I played."
Woods showed his usual flashes of brilliance, holing out a 50-foot bunker shot on 14 to get a hole back. But he was erratic off the tee, often missing fairways to the right. Woods bogeyed two holes, which proved to be his undoing.
Clark will face Rory McIlroy in the Sweet 16. Woods will probably take a week off, then play the CA Championship at Doral.
