Woods upbeat after closing 68 in PGA event

Tiger Woods, trying to recapture the form that won 14 major titles, says he made “big strides” in reviving his game at the PGA Quicken Loans National despite a failed Sunday charge.

Tournament host Woods birdied five of the first 10 holes, including a 42-foot birdie putt at the par-3 ninth, but then made bogeys on three of the next four holes.

The 39-year-old American answered with an eight-foot birdie putt at 17 but settled for a three-under par 68 final round to finish on eight-under 276 – his lowest 72-hole score in relation to par at a PGA event since the 2013 BMW Championship.

“I started off well and really hit the ball well and looking at the whole week in general, felt like I made some big strides,” Woods said.

“My short game is starting to come back to where it used to be. Everything is kind of trending in the correct direction now.”

Woods has slumped to 266th in world rankings and fired some of his worst career rounds this season due to injuries and swing changes. He missed the cut at the US and British Opens.

“This is much better, much, much, much better to have a round like today,” Woods said.

“Even though I struggled as bad as I did, one thing has been missing. Trying to make an up and down here and there, scramble and turn a round (from) awful into a scoring round.”

Coming off a third-round 74 that ended his title hopes, Woods said he fixed Saturday swing errors by “basically just set up and organised back to basics. Get it organised at address and from there go ahead and go.”

Woods, who is not qualified for the US PGA season-ending playoffs, will try to move closer to the record 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus in two weeks at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.

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