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Tiger Woods will return to Australia without a victory since his visit last year after falling 11 strokes behind third round leader Francesco Molinari at the HSBC Champions tournament on Saturday.
Such a scenario might have seemed unfathomable in the hours after his Australian Masters victory at Kingston Heath 51 weeks ago, but that was before his personal life fell apart amid revelations of multiple extra-marital affairs.
Woods is rebuilding his private life after finalising his divorce from wife Elin, and his swing is also a work in progress with new instructor Sean Foley.
Woods is showing flashes of his old brilliance but is having trouble stringing 72 good holes together.
“That’s part of the building process,” he said after battling to a mediocre one-over-par 73 in the World Golf Championships event at Sheshan.
“I went through it with (previous coaches) Butch (Harmon) and Hank (Haney). I can hit shots in a row but I haven’t strung it together for all 18 holes and haven’t done it for 72, so I just need to be patient and keep working on it.
“I warm up pretty good, but then on the course when I have to hit certain shots, or I don’t feel comfortable, I revert back to my old stuff, and therein lies the problem, because I’m caught in between.”
Woods gave his large gallery something to cheer about with a birdie at the first hole, but bogeys at the next two holes halted his momentum and it was a bit of a struggle from then.
“Not a very good day,” he admitted. “I didn’t hit the ball very well, never got anything going and missed a lot of makeable putts.
“I had a good first round and the last two days I haven’t done much.”
Europeans dominate the leaderboard. Italian Molinari sank a three-metre birdie at the par-five 18th to preserve a one-stroke lead over Englishman Lee Westwood. Both shot 67.
Molinari is at 14-under 202, while world No.1 Westwood is alone on 13-under, with a big gap to fellow Englishman, Luke Donald, at 10-under.
Robert Allenby (72) is the leading Australian, 10 strokes behind, while Richard Green (73) trails by 11.
Allenby fought back nicely after a poor front nine but a three-putt par from seven metres at the par-five 18th left a nasty taste.
“Not a pleasant feeling, but I’m not going to win, so it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“I didn’t play great all day but it’s just disappointing the way I finished because it was a tough day and I ground it out.”
Green, who played with defending champion Phil Mickelson, struggled with his putter.
“Tee to green was probably the best I’ve played all week but I just couldn’t get it in the hole for birdie and I made a couple of silly errors on the back nine,” Green said.
“But at least (playing with Mickelson) a lot more people were watching compared to yesterday.”