O’Hair turns table on teacher Tiger
Tiger Woods was left to rue a putting tip handed out to Sean O’Hair at East Lake as the pupil turned the tables on the teacher.
Tiger Woods was left to rue a putting tip handed out to Sean O’Hair at East Lake as the pupil turned the tables on the teacher during the first round of the Tour Championship.
O’Hair will take a one-shot lead over world number one Woods, Padraig Harrington and Stewart Cink when the second round of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup finale gets under way at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia, later today.
The American’s lead came courtesy of a four-under-par 66 with O’Hair sinking a birdie putt of 56 feet at the fourth and finishing his round leading the tournament in putts per greens in regulation at 1.571.
That was a welcome turnaround for a player often dogged by putting woes and O’Hair said he was grateful for the pre-round tip from Woods.
“I’m not even close to doing exactly what he’s told me to do,” O’Hair admitted.
“I truly believe in what he said, and I think it’s the key for me to kind of take my putting to another level, because let’s face it, that’s kind of what’s held me back for a long time.
“As far as getting that kind of advice from somebody, getting advice like that from good players is obviously awesome, but getting it from basically the greatest of all time is pretty cool.
“The thing that impresses me more, we all know how good of a player he is and how great of a player he is, but I think the thing that impresses me more is the quality of guy he is.
“I mean, I’m his competition, and for him to help me out like he did was very classy, I thought.”
Woods saw the funny side of giving a rival a helping hand, joking: “I’m going to go chew him out right now.
“It’s very simple,” he added, “you always help your friends.
“Sean is a friend of mine, and like all my friends, you always try to make their life better somehow.
“That’s the whole idea of having friends in your life.
“Sean has been struggling a little bit on the greens this year, and I thought I could offer a little bit of help and insight to how he could change that, and now, as I said, I’m going to go chew him out.”
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