Woods suffers another setback at Pebble Beach golf

Tiger Woods opened his PGA Tour season by charging his way into contention only to let another opportunity slip through his fingers at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Woods followed up his season-opening third place finish at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship by finishing tied for 15th after shooting a disappointing final-round three-over par 75 on the Pebble Beach Golf Links course on Sunday.

The former world number one was tied for the lead heading into the final round in Abu Dhabi. This time he was four strokes back of third-round leader Charlie Wi but ended up a distant nine strokes behind winner and playing partner Phil Mickelson.

"What was frustrating is I had a chance," Woods said. "All I had to do was get off to a good, solid start today and I didn't do that."

Asked if this one stung more than Abu Dhabi, the 14-time major winner said he had more ground to make up at Pebble Beach.

"I had the share of the lead at Abu Dhabi," Woods said. "Here I was four back trailing on a golf course that was playing softer than what it did the first day after the rains.

"And I figured I needed to shoot 65 or 66 to win the golf tournament and it ended up being I had to shoot 66 just to get into a playoff with Phil.

"I chose the right numbers. Unfortunately I just couldn't execute to get to it."

The share of 15th leaves Woods still chasing his 72nd PGA Tour win and first official win on any tour since 2009.

Woods did chalk up his first victory in two years in December, but that came in the limited-field Chevron World Challenge, an invitational tournament that Woods stages to provide funds for his charity foundation.

Woods disputes any suggestion that he hasn't won in over two years.

"People think it's a couple of years but I just won a couple months ago," Woods said. "I look at that as a win.

"And I'm just kind of off to my first start of the year here in the States, and I made some good improvement this week."

It was the 30th time US golfing heroes Woods and Mickelson have matched up head-to-head, with Mickelson 5-0 against Woods in their last five meetings in a final round. Overall they are an even 13-13-4 in head-to-head contests.

"I've always enjoyed playing with Phil," Woods said. "We have always battled since the first time we went at it head-to-head probably in 1997. We were in a position that we needed to go get Charlie. We had to go get him and Phil did."