Tiger Woods after his 73: 'Mentally, I feel beat up'

Sideways from the get-go, Tiger Woods looked like he was heading straight toward a dreaded 80 in Thursday's first round of The Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide.Instead, he reversed course and salvaged the round.
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Playing for the first time in a month, and for only the fifth time this season, the five-time Memorial winner started on the 10th and went out in 4-over-par 40, the lowest point a drive on the 18th that was more than 100 yards right of the fairway and out of bounds.
But Woods made three birdies on his inward nine and shot 33 to finish at 1-over-par 73 at Muirfield Village Golf Club to stand six shots out of the lead set by a quartet of players, including Ryan Moore.
"I didn't have much with my game. I need to work on it here a little bit," Woods said. "But I fought hard to get back. And to get it back on a golf course like that, it was pretty good work.
"Physically, I feel good. Mentally, I feel beat up."
Woods, who has never missed the cut here in 14 previous starts, hit just 4 of 14 fairways and 9 of 18 greens. He headed to eat following his round and then went straight to the range to work on his swing.
Woods, who hasn't won since August 2013 and has fallen to No. 172 in the world rankings, said he and swing consultant Chris Como worked hard in the week leading into the tournament implementing a few new wrinkles into his swing. But it's those additions that have Woods often stuck in translation.
"It's the pattern we work on; we're trying to change it. It's kind of what you have to go through," Woods said. "And unfortunately, I can hit it either way, because of this move we're working on. But it's so much more flush, and so much more solid and a lot easier on my body, when I seem to do it right."
Woods had a two-way miss going, or as it's known in this sport's parlance, military golf – left, right, left, right. He hit his tee shot left into the rough on 10, his approach left into a creek on 11. On the 13, he hit lumber on the right with his tee shot. On 17 he found trees again on the right. On 18 he was off the golf course map to the right.
On the first hole his tee shot nearly wound up in a creek left of the fairway, on the fifth his tee shot landed among trees on the left.
But at no time did Woods revert back to his old swing.
"I was just trying to stay committed to what we're working on, to what we're doing," he said. "I hit it awful, yeah. So what? I was going to go through this phase and stick with it, keep sticking with it. And some of the shots I hit were really, really good, but then I also had some really bad shots, too. And we need to work on that, too and omit the bad ones.
"I've gone through phases like this, rounds like this before in the past where, yeah, it's easy to revert back and go ahead and hit some old pattern, but it doesn't do you any good going forward. … Just got to suck it up. If you believe in it, do it. And eventually it will start turning, and when it turns, I've had periods where I've played good for four or five years, where I've won close to 20 tournaments in that stretch."
In his five wins here, Woods never shot worse than 71 in the opening round. While he won't discount winning this week, at the moment he's more concerned with his ability to hit a fairway.
"I'm excited about the fact that, one, I stuck with (the swing), I was committed to it and I turned that round around when it was as bad as it was," he said. "I'm frustrated with the fact that I didn't hit it like I did either yesterday or warming up this morning. And I definitely need to go fix that."