If Tiger Woods hopes to use the 152nd Open Championship to prove retirement calls premature, he'll have to do so in the second round at Royal Troon Golf Club. The PGA Tour legend, making his 23rd British Open start, carded an 8-over 79 on Thursday.

When he walked off the 18th green, Tiger was tied for 140th out of 158 players — 12 strokes behind the leaders.

“I didn't do a whole lot of things right today,” he said.

Tiger's round peaked early, with a vintage birdie roll on the par-4 3rd.

It trended downward from there. Tiger bogeyed the next hole, a par 5, then doubled the par-3 5th.

He settled for bogey on the par-4 7th, which only placed outsized onus on the dangerous par-3 8th. Playing at 120-yards, the Postage Stamp pretty much ate everybody's lunch on Thursday, including Tiger, who missed the green and was escaped with a bogey (not so “simple,” after all).

After the turn, Tiger — like Rory McIlroy, who also carded 78 – was vaporized by Royal Troon's toughest test: The Railway. On the behemoth par-4 11th, Tiger hit his blind tee shot onto the out-of-bounds train tracks that run parallel to the grounds. He compounded the eventual double-bogey with a bogey on the par-4 12th.

The 82-time PGA Tour winner was able to muster a birdie on No. 13, momentarily lowering his score to 6-over with five holes to play. He flashed niftiness around the greens with a bunker scramble on No. 16. He gave it back with bogeys on No. 17 and No. 18.

The numbers for the first 18 holes of Tiger's final PGA Tour appearance of 2024: Two birdies, six bogeys, two doubles. He lost over four total strokes on the field and over two strokes with his putter. Despite hitting 10 of 14 fairways, his out-of-rhythm approach game let him down; Tiger hit just eight of 18 greens in regulation.

“I made that putt on the 3rd hole, and then I think I had, what, three 3-putts today,” he said. “I didn't hit my irons very close, and I didn't give myself a whole lot of looks today.

“I need to shoot something in the mid-60s tomorrow to get something going on the weekend.”

Tigers has one made cut in six majors dating back to the 2020 Masters: this past April, at Augusta National. He finished last after the weekend. He hasn't made an Open cut since 2018.

Last week, Ryder Cup legend Colin Montgomerie made waves by not-so-subtly suggesting that Tiger should hang it up before he tarnishes his legacy.

“I hope people remember Tiger as Tiger was, the passion and the charismatic aura around him,” Montgomerie said to the the Times of London. “There is none of that now. At Pinehurst he did not seem to enjoy a single shot and you think, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ He’s coming to Troon and he won’t enjoy it there either.”

Tiger, responded in classic — and classically unreflective — fashion:

There were genuine reasons for optimism about Tiger's chances of sticking around Scotland for the weekend. The relatively flat terrain and nature of links golf — which rewards experience and guile over power — should theoretically behoove his rusty game and unpredictable body. His former swing coach posited that the Open, not the Masters, would actually present the 48-year-old with his best chance to contend in a major at this stage of his career. (There's always Friday, I suppose.)

“I'm physically feeling a lot better than I did at the beginning of the year,” Tiger said after his round. “At the end of last year, it was tough, and I haven't played a whole lot. I think that, as the year has gone on, I have gotten better. I just wish I could have played a little bit more, but I've been saving it for the majors just in case I do something pretty major and then take myself out of it.

“Hopefully next year will be a little bit better than this year.”

Tiger is already losing to Father Time, and he was far from the only prolific golfer to succumb to Mother Nature. For much of Thursday, the winds at Royal Troon baffled the world's best golfers by inconveniently blowing in the opposite direction as usual.

Tiger, Xander Schauffele (-2) and Patrick Cantlay (+2) will tee off at 4:25 a.m ET on Friday.