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Tiger Woods opened with a 1-under 70 to lie three strokes off the pace at the Valspar Championship, but things nearly grounded to a halt on the 16th when the 14-time major champion had an encounter with a tree.
Woods pulled his tee shot into the pine straw down the left side of the par-4 16th hole - the first hole of the "Snake Pit" - where it came to rest near a tree. While he was able to get a club on the ball, his left arm hit the tree upon impact and he sent the club flying out in front of him.
Watch Tiger's miraculous shot here...
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While replays seemed to show Woods’ hand taking the brunt of the impact with the tree, after the round he explained that the collision was felt a little higher.
“The hand is fine. I didn’t hit my hand. My forearm hit the tree a little bit,” Woods said. “Once (the fans) got cleared out I figured I could put some speed into this thing and I was going to feel it. But I pulled it off.”
Regrann from @coloradogolfblog - Commitment level 1000 #ouch #tigerwoods #goat #CGBgolf @skratchtv - #regrann Tiger being Tiger!!! Went on to make par. A post shared by Vernon Harris (@vzharris) on Mar 8, 2018 at 6:53pm PST
