Tiger's Nike putter experiment ends after 54 holes

After struggling mightily on the greens during the first three rounds at St. Andrews, Tiger Woods has put his old Titleist putter back in his bag for the final round of the Open Championship.

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland (AP) -- Tiger Woods has gone back to his old putter for the final round of the British Open.

Woods played the first three rounds with a Nike Method putter, hoping it would help him deal with the slower speed of the greens at the Old Course.

But he's struggled mightily with the flat stick, especially in the third round. He took 35 putts -- more than all but five players. Woods had 99 putts over the first three days, essentially accounting for the margin between him and leader Louis Oosthuizen, who had the third-fewest putts in the field with 88. In all, Woods had 10 three putts through 54 holes.

Facing a 12-stroke deficit on Sunday, Woods switched back to the Scotty Cameron putter made by Titleist, a Newport 2 model. That's the putter he had been using since 1999.

©2010 by STATS LLC and Associated Press.