Tiger Woods didn’t exactly get the 2015 season off to a hot start. Two lackluster rounds in the Arizona desert left Tiger looking awfully rusty. The most jarring aspect of Tiger’s game, of course, was his atrocious short game. With all of the focus put on Tiger’s struggles around the green, along with a mediocre ball striking display, Tiger limped home Friday with a paltry 82, his worst round as a professional.
It didn’t look good, but Tiger Woods had five days to prep for Torrey Pines, a place he’s won eight times. At the very least, a made cut and 72 competitive holes at Torrey would be just the remedy Tiger needed. After a fog delay, a sluggish Tiger Woods came out mishitting chip shots and spraying Drivers left and right. Twelve painful holes later, Tiger had withdrawn from the Farmers Insurance Open.
A poor performance because of an injury is certainly something that can be excused, but after last week’s performance, this isn’t what any Tiger fans wanted to see. Given Tiger’s recent history of being prone to the WD (3 in his last 8 starts,) a trend that coincides with his recent major championship struggles. Tiger looks far from the player that he was in the mid-2000s, the one that was a lock to beat Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 career majors.
But what’s wrong with Tiger? His short game has been so bad of late that on Wednesday, he was seen receiving the counsel of Billy Herschel, wedge in hand. This juxtaposition is fitting. Tell someone that the number 56 ranked player in the world was chatting with the reigning FedEx Cup champ about the short game and it doesn’t seem unreasonable. Tell someone that Tiger Woods was asking Billy Horschel for advice and his head might implode. Tiger doesn’t look in command around the greens, he looks like he’s searching for answers.
His short game is struggling, and that’s well documented. But over his 48 holes of competition this year, Tiger’s full swing has looked pretty bad too. Tiger only hit 13/28 fairways in Phoenix, and his mini-round in La Jolla didn’t look any better. Throw in the fact that Tiger is hitting about half of his greens, and that’s not a good recipe for scoring.
Tiger said in his pre-tournament interview in Phoenix that he and new swing coach Chris Como were sticking to their game plan and that he was excited for what the new year had in store for him and his new swing. Tiger has averaged over 320 yards off of the tee, which shows that the explosiveness is there, but the sharpness just isn’t. He’s played less than 3 competition rounds with Como, so they’re certainly still in the beginning phase, but he’s not exactly firing on all cylinders.
Many have said that Tiger’s focus just isn’t on golf anymore. Many skeptics point out that he was in Vail watching girlfriend Lindsay Vonn compete instead of playing Monday or Tuesday practice rounds. Everyone knows that Tiger put as much work and thought into his game as anyone in the world beforehand, and that won 14 major championships. I’m not convinced that a more relaxed Tiger off of the course is enough to justify his recent struggles (keep in mind that were while he’s played less than three rounds this year, he didn’t look good at his world challenge in December either. Bearing this in mind, there really isn’t anything positive to look at in the last five months for Tiger.) Rory McIlroy just won in Dubai with a multi-million dollar lawsuit looming in the next week. It is possible to play good golf without devoting yourself to practice 24/7.
Speaking of McIlroy, have the two ever looked so far apart? While Tiger is on the West Coast blading chip shots, Rory is in Dubai looking like, well-Tiger in 2000. The most significant parallel between Rory and Tiger-of-old is probably that their best is better than everyone else’s’ best. If Rory is playing well, no one can beat him – period.
Back to Tiger, can anyone imagine that Tiger doing what he did on Thursday in Phoenix back in 2000? After backing off his tee shot twice at the raucous 16th, Tiger made par, but was clearly rattled by the noise. This is in stark juxtaposition to the Tiger in ’99 when he stepped up, made an ace, and then fist pumped for 166 yards until he picked his ball out of the hole.
This is another telltale sign to me that Tiger’s troubles aren’t solely technical. I think that Tiger began to doubt himself (a string of poor results, injuries, too-short layoffs, rinse and repeat,) and tried to change his swing to assure himself that he was fixing the problem.
Tiger simply isn’t strong mentally right now. He doesn’t look like he used to, when he knew he was the best player in the world, and he was simply going to will the ball into the hole. Tiger looks like he’s searching for answers instead of just executing.
No one, myself included, is willing to believe that the 2008 duel at Torrey was Tiger’s last major triumph, but it’s going to be an uphill battle for him to win another major, much more break Nicklaus’ record – his main goal for the rest of his career. That starts at Augusta in two months.
Every part of Tiger’s game needs to be better for him to even sniff the top of the leaderboard at the Masters, and we all know that that’s going to be his number one goal for the next 60 days. Tiger is prone to talking about needing “reps” in the months leading up to the majors, but for some reason seems to be hesitant to schedule any tournaments!
Tiger has shown that he can change swing coaches and still win majors (see: Hank Haney.) But it’s clear that Tiger needs tournament rounds to do this, and that’s what’s so troubling about this week’s early exit at Torrey, is Tiger going to stay healthy enough to make major runs?
With Tiger’s world ranking in jeopardy due to his long layoff, qualifying for Doral looks doubtful. I wouldn’t mind seeing Tiger add Riviera, a Florida Swing tournament other than the Honda, and in Houston. It’s not reasonable to expect Tiger to come out and compete at major venues with a new swing and long layoff. If the back holds up, Tiger needs to gain the all-around sharpness that we’ve seen to get the 15th major.
If Tiger wants to win a major this year, an absolutely crucial step in his quest to usurp Nicklaus as the greatest major championship golfer of all time, he needs to make major improvements. He can’t win hitting half of his fairways or greens, and certainly can’t win without a short game. I don’t doubt his motivation or work ethic, but for the first time ever, I slightly doubt Tiger’s confidence to execute at a high level. Tiger’s complex is hurting right now, and at the center of it is a complex Tiger.
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