Hopes for Woods Sink Into the Sand A variety of contenders faltered during Sunday's final round of the 141st British Open, but no one seemed to find himself in more peculiar situations than Tiger Woods. That included a bunker shot on the sixth hole when he nearly hit himself with his ball and then had to drop to both knees to hit it sideways. He ended up with a three-over-par seven on the hole. Woods had various comebacks and spurts - each followed by setbacks. His three-over 73 was good enough for a tie for third with Brandt Snedeker, his playing partner, who also had an adventurous, and disappointing, day. "You know, it was right there, but I couldn't make it happen," Woods said. It's happened to all of us at one point or another. We've all been in positions to win golf tournaments and sometimes people go ahead and win them and take them away from you; other times we make mistakes. Woods described his approach at the bunker at No. 6, when his first attempt appeared to be doomed - he had a steep wall in front of him that he did not come close to clearing. "The problem is if I played it sideways I wasn't assured I could get it out," Woods said. I could have ended up on a downslope, then I've got no backswing. So I had to try, and the game plan was to fire it into the bank, have it ricochet to the right and then have an angle to come back at it. Unfortunately it ricocheted to the left and almost hit me. Then I tried to play an interesting shot after that and ended up three-putting. Woods has been uncommonly upbeat after these less-than-championship results in recent years, and Sunday was no different. "Over all, I'm pleased with the way I played," he said. Unfortunately, there were just a couple of misplays here and there that ended up costing me some momentum, especially today at the sixth. Again, I left a lot of putts short out there. Graeme McDowell, who went off in the final pairing with the third-round leader Adam Scott and was looking forward to his chances Sunday, was composed but troubled about the 75 he shot to fall into a tie for fifth. He was also in the final pairing at last month's United States Open won by Webb Simpson. "It's frustrating to get off to flat starts both times now in the last rounds of majors," McDowell said. I'll address some scenarios that I feel I can do better. But I'm not going beat myself up right now. I'm disappointed, but I'm fine.