Tiger Woods gives advice to Justin Thomas after latter struggles in US Open 2024 opening round
Tiger Woods finished the first round of the US Open 2024 with a score of 4 over. He had several complications during the day and will have to improve his performance on Friday to make the cut.
Despite his score, Woods took a few minutes to give advice to Justin Thomas, who went to the practice range after finishing the round.
This was reported by Golf.com journalist James Colgan on his X account (formerly Twitter):
"Tiger stepping in to give Justin Thomas a few pointers on the range after a tough opening round. Not very often you see that at the US Open."
The friendship between Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods is well known. On more than a few occasions, tournament organizers have placed them together to play the first rounds, given the media attention they receive.
Justin Thomas played the first round of the US Open in the group following Tiger Woods'. His tee time was 7:40 am (Eastern Time) and he played with Collin Morikawa and Brooks Koepka.
Thomas finished with a score of 7 over, with two birdies and nine bogeys. With this result he is T141, with the first round still to finish.
A review of Tiger Woods' first round at the 2024 US Open
Tiger Woods started the first round of the 2024 US Open on the 10th hole, and did so with birdie on the first hole. Woods then birdied the next five holes for par, which led to a temporary share of first place.
On the 16th hole (7th for him) his problems began, as he made two consecutive bogeys to close the front nine with par on the 18th. His performance did not improve and he found three more bogeys in the first four holes of the back nine.
On the 582-yards par-5 5th hole (14th of the round) Woods found his second and final birdie of the round. On the final four holes of the day he made one bogey and three pars.
The statistics show that Woods' main problems were in his approach to the green and especially in his putting. The 15-time major champion reached only 50% of the greens in regulation and averaged 2.11 putts per hole for the round, well above the tournament average.
Woods three-putted most of the holes and two-putted 11 others. On several of these occasions he missed the birdie chance, which deprived him of a better result.