Tiger Woods withdraws after PGA Championship third round due to soreness in his surgically-repaired right leg

Tiger Woods has withdrawn from the PGA Championship after shooting a 9-over-par 79 in Saturday's third round.

It marked the first withdrawal in Woods' professional career.

Woods, 46, shot 1-under-par over the final five holes Saturday to avoid recording a score in the 80s for the third time in a major. Still, it was his worst round ever at a PGA Championship.

It was a gritty effort at the end for Woods, who started the day at 3-over 143 and finished at 12 over and stood 21 strokes out of the lead when his third round ended at Southern Hills Country Club.

Clearly struggling to make it through 18 holes on his rebuilt right leg, Woods and his team declined an on-camera interview with CBS Sports following the round. Instead, Woods and his reps told the CBS television crew that he was sore.

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On Friday, Woods made the cut at a major for the second time in two tries since nearly losing his right leg 15 months ago in a devastating single-car crash in southern California. He shot a 1-under-par 69 on Friday to sneak in under the cut line.

In the third round, he started with a par but found the water on the second hole for a bogey. His real troubles began on the par-3 sixth hole, when his tee shot landed in the water again, his shot from the drop area found the rough to the left of the green, and he hit his pitch short of the green. After hitting a chip shot to about two feet from the cup, he putted out for a triple-bogey 6.

From there, Woods' round unravelled on a chilly morning. He bogeyed the seventh and the ninth to leave him with a 41 on the front nine.

The bogey on the par-4 ninth hole was the first of five straight bogeys for Woods, a four-time PGA Championship winner. He won at Southern Hills in 2007, the most recent time the tournament was played at the course.

Woods never before had carded five straight bogeys at a major championship.

The bright spot of Woods' day came on the 413-yard, par-4 15th. Woods flashed his first smile of the day when he drained a 12-metre putt for his only birdie on the round.

Woods' worst-ever round in a major championship came in 2002, when he shot an 81 in the third round at The Open Championship at Muirfield — the same year in which he won the Masters and the U.S. Open.

He shot an 80 in the first round of the U.S. Open in 2015 at Chambers Bay.

Reuters