KEY POINTS:
Holder Tiger Woods was livid with his putting after a one-under 71 left him four strokes off the pace in the WGC-CA Championship first round yesterday.
The world number one, red-hot favourite this week to clinch his 13th WGC title, wasted a good display of ball-striking in difficult conditions by taking 32 putts.
"I can't putt any worse than I did today," the five-times champion said after mixing three birdies with two bogeys on a day of sporadic showers and gusting winds at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa.
"It was absolutely pathetic. Otherwise, I hit it great all day. I was just striking the ball the way I needed to in these conditions.
"It was tough to hit fairways and tough to hit greens," added Woods, who romped to victory by eight shots last October when this tournament was played as the WGC-American Express Championship at The Grove in Hertfordshire, England.
"If you do miss it, you'd better miss on the correct side so you're not coming dead downwind on your chip shots."
Woods, who fixed his swing after fading with a 76 in the final round of last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, accepts he now needs to remedy his putting.
"Hopefully tomorrow I can start the ball on line with the right speed each and every time," said the 31-year-old American after finishing four shots behind Swede Henrik Stenson and Australia's Robert Allenby.
"If I misread it, so be it. It's just my fault for misreading it. It's not like we've never putted in wind like this before. Everyone's got to deal with it and you know what you need to do."
Asked whether it was easier to fix a problem swing than poor putting, Woods replied: "Oh, putting by far."
The 12-times major winner has happy memories of the par-72 Blue Course, having claimed the Doral Championship twice in the last two years with a combined total of 44 under.
Yesterday's conditions, however, presented him with a very different challenge.
"We didn't have wind like this [the last two years]," said Woods, who won the Buick Invitational in January on his first PGA Tour start of the year.
"With the rain kind of spitting at you a little bit, it made for a very difficult day.
"I hit two good putts today that the wind just took up the hill. They were great putts but that's just the way it is."
- REUTERS
