ORLANDO, Fla. -- After a recent run of success that has seen him in contention and shooing good scores, a round such as the one Tiger Woods produced Friday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was probably inevitable.
It is not something he would admit, nor would he give in to such an idea.
But to shoot even-par 72 on a day when he clearly was lacking the same sizzle he produced at last week's Valspar Championship and during Thursday's first round was more than acceptable in the big picture of his comeback.
"Today was a hard fight, it was a grind," Woods said after finishing at 4 under par and seven strokes back of tournament leaders Henrik Stenson and Bryson DeChambeau. "It wasn't sharp, but I hung in there and just kept grinding away and chipped away at the golf course. I didn't hit the ball close, I didn't hit the ball well, but I was just hanging in there, hanging in there and not trying to shoot myself out of the tournament.
"I thought something in the red would be great, and I just wasn't quite able to do it, but came close."
Like most of the day, Woods was unable to get a putt to drop on the 18th after a mammoth 3-wood liner off the tee that left him just 150 yards in. He knocked it to 15 feet but fell to his knees as the ball agonizingly hung on the edge and did not drop.
So he very well may have shot himself out of the tournament, although he did come back from a seven-shot deficit through 36 holes 10 years ago to win at Bay Hill. But in a tie for 18th, he has numerous players to pass.
Woods is coming off a tie for second at last week's Valspar, where he missed a playoff with Paul Casey by one stroke. He opened the tournament with a 68 and trailed first-round leader Stenson by four strokes.
"I was fighting and didn't hit anything close," Woods said. "I had a couple of wedges in my hand and didn't hit them within two feet. So it was a little off today, and the only thing that I felt really good with was my putter."
Woods didn't hit a green until the fifth hole and hit just 10-of-18 for the round. He started poorly at the first, missing the fairway with a 2-iron that led to a bogey. From there, it was a succession of pars -- he lipped out for birdie at the eighth -- then made a sloppy bogey at the ninth when he pulled his approach from 150 yards some 50 feet from the hole. He three-putted for a bogey and a front-side score of 38.
His first birdie came at the par-5 12th, and he added another at the par-5 16th, where he hit a risky 5-iron shot from 190 yards in deep rough to 20 feet, setting up a two-putt birdie. Good chances at the 17th and 18th holes did not drop.
So, in the 16th round of his comeback from spinal fusion surgery that occurred 11 months ago, Woods was far from his best. Still, it was an eighth straight round of par or better dating to the second round of the Honda Classic, where he shot a 1-over 71.
"Today was just a bad day," he said. "I didn't really feel all that comfortable with a lot of my motion. It wasn't sharp, it wasn't crisp, and I think it was contagious in the whole group. We all mishit a lot of golf shots today in our group [Hideki Matsuyama finished 2 under, Jason Day even], but we hung around and grinded out a score."