Tiger Finishes Even Par, Likely Out of Contention for US Open Title

Tiger Woods didn't fire off his best round Monday at the 2009 US Open, but he didn't shoot poorly either, wrapping up with a 69 that left him at even par for the tournament. Unfortunately for Tiger, a three-bogey/four-birdie round probably won't be enough to land him in any potential playoff for consecutive Open titles.

That's not to say that the leaders aren't falling back -- Phil Mickelson, David Duval, Ross Fisher and Lucas Glover aren't up a substantial margin on Tiger, but at this point, it seems pretty unlikely that Woods will have a shot at any playoff that takes place.

The thing, though, is that Tiger wasn't horrible during this Open (obviously) and you have to feel that the weather really played a major role in his inability to distinguish himself from the rest of the field; the conditions that permeated Bethpage allowed someone like Ricky Barnes to really push ahead from the field and created a different sort of Open field.

Additionally, the weather took away Tiger's "typical Sunday" -- he could still make a charge, obviously, but there was something odd about seeing him in red on a day when the tournament wasn't closing. In the end, though, too many bogeys during his final round -- and possibly even more importantly, a poor finish to his first round that left him four-over after the first round of play -- cost him a shot to repeat at Bethpage and in the Open championship.