Posts tagged Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods is in the midst of playing three tournaments in three weeks and as always, Eldrick is the talk of the golf world, both for his play on the course and some off the course distractions.

This year, more than in the recent past, we’ve seen glimpses of what Tiger could be if he can string together solid rounds for an entire tournament. For the first time since he began working with Sean Foley, Woods seems to have his swing in order; it’s smooth and fluid.

Of course, he’ll have his missed shots, everyone does; it’s golf. He’s never been a great driver of the ball and as he said in his younger, more candid years, “that’s why my last name is Woods, not Fairways.”

Right now, Woods’ biggest bugaboo is his putting. Everyone is well aware of the demons that Woods is dealing with, but as one of the critically acclaimed best clutch putters in the history of the game, he simply has lost it.

Let’s go in depth.

Putting Woes

It’s no secret that Tiger has had some problems with his short game since the scandal and subsequent swing change. Many accredited the lacking short game to the amount of time Woods and Foley spent working on his full swing.

Woods would talk about it in his post-round flash media sessions and in his pre-tournament pressers, admitting that he hasn’t had the time to work on keeping his short game as sharp as he would like because of the sheer time commitment he has made to his full swing.

Now, with his full swing seemingly in order, it would appear as if the time is now for his putting to come around. The only problem is that it hasn’t yet. With Tiger,

‘what have you done for me lately’ is in hyper-drive.

We want results from Woods and we wanted them yesterday.

There are a few theories as to why Woods’ putting has fallen off, but none have been articulated as well as Rick Reilly’s “The Tiger Woods I used to know.”

Personally, I subscribe to one of Reilly’s points, the ‘Nike Theory.’ I don’t completely agree with the entire theory, but the main point is one that I’ve wondered about over the past few month. I’m not so sure about Nike sticking with Tiger after the scandal purely on the basis of using a Method putter,

Reilly writes: During the Tiger Sex Scandal, most companies fled Woods like Red Riding Hood. One that stuck with him? Nike. Not long after, at the 2010 British Open, Woods started using a Nike putter instead of the Scotty Cameron Titleist putter he’d won his 13 majors with. It was like Jim Bowie suddenly carrying a putty knife; B.B. King playing an oboe. Maybe Nike said, “We’ll hang with you through all those pancake waitresses, but we don’t want to see somebody else’s putter next to your ball.” Whatever. Since that day, Woods is 0-for-majors and winless on the PGA Tour.

In Woods’ press conference yesterday at the Honda Classic (I’ll get to that part in a bit), he talked about trying to match the speed coming off the face of his Nike putter with his old Scotty.

“I had to find a putter that comes off at the same pace as my Cameron did.  We had to work on the grooves to make sure that it came off the same speed,” Woods said. “Whether I used the mallet at the Masters last year, or I’ve used this one, the one with the plumber neck, they are coming off the same speed as my Cameron, and that’s the beauty of it, because I don’t have to make any adjustments for speed.”

Doesn’t this simply beg the question, “why bother doing that, just go back to the Scotty?”

And as Peter Jacobsen said in the Reilly piece, “I think Nike would much rather see Tiger hoisting trophies over his head again than see their swoosh lined up next to his ball.”

Haney Book

By now, we are all aware that Woods’ former swing coach turned television star Hank Haney has penned a book, “The Big Miss,” that details his time with the former world No. 1.

As with everything that uses Woods’ name or likeness without giving a cut to Tiger, he is not pleased. Couple that with the fact that over six years, Woods and Haney had to form some semblance of a relationship, Tiger has to feel a little bit betrayed by his coach.

Earlier this week, Haney, along with Jaime Diaz, who co-wrote the book, released some excerpts to Golf Digest, just in time for Woods to face the brush-back at the Honda Classic Wednesday press conference.

The excerpts included such ground-breaking revelations like “Tiger’s knee affected his swing (NSS);” “Tiger feared the driver (named Woods, not Fairways)” “Catching Jack added pressure (you don’t say?);” “Tiger’s extreme workouts risked his knee (again, NS);” and finally, “His fascination with the military became obsession.”

That last one was the excerpt that got all the play over the last week. The only problem with the SEAL quote is that he’s been on record as saying if he wasn’t a professional golfer, he would like to be a Navy SEAL. Nothing new.

Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, came out with an official statement on Tuesday in response to the release of the excerpts.

“His armchair psychology about Tiger, on matters he admits they didn’t even discuss, is ridiculous,” Steinberg said. “Because of his father, it’s no secret that Tiger has always had high respect for the military, so for Haney to twist that admiration into something negative is disrespectful.”

Not sure where the twisting into some thing negative occurred, but for Tiger, that was his response to the excerpts as he went into his press conference saying that he wouldn’t answer questions about Haney’s book.

Enter the Golf Channel’s bowtie-wearing Alex Miceli and this back and forth with Woods.

Rumor has it Woods and Miceli don’t have a warm relationship to begin with, so Miceli had no problem trying to rattle Tiger’s cage. However, I’m of two minds on this clip.

First of all, it’s Miceli’s job to get a story out of the press conference and ask hard questions. However, on the other hand, Woods had specified that he wouldn’t go into the excerpts and had deflected other questions about the book before Miceli’s.

Plus, as we’ve seen in the past, when Woods says he won’t talk about something, he doesn’t change his mind.

So, who’s in the wrong here? I would say neither, with more blame falling on Miceli than Tiger. Woods is not there to sell Haney’s book, although it could be construed that the same isn’t true for Miceli. The clip blew up everywhere from Deadspin to Sportscenter to The Big Lead and more people were made aware of Haney’s book as a result.

To say it was irresponsible journalism wouldn’t be fair, but to say Miceli was simply rabble-rousing isn’t completely unfair either.

Three Tournaments, Three Weeks

Woods is in the midst of playing three tournaments in three weeks. He played 36 holes in the WGC Accenture Match Play last week before being bounced by Nick Watney in the second round. Woods committed to play in this week’s Honda Classic at the end of last week for the first time since he was a 17-year-old amateur.

The Honda Classic is the second tournament that Woods has played in this year that isn’t on his usual schedule (the first being the AT&T at Pebble). However, this tournament makes sense. With moving to Jupiter Island, PGA National is a short flight/drive. The tournament boasts a strong field and it’s an event that Jack Nicklaus is strongly invested in, something that still means a lot to Woods.

“I heard great things about the Honda Classic,” Woods said via his website. “Now that I live here I want to play whenever possible. Jack’s involvement in the tournament and the benefits to the local community are also important.”

Next week, Tiger will play in the WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral where he has won six times.

Woods will most likely take a few weeks off following Doral, playing the week of March 22 at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Invitational, two weeks before the year’s first major at Augusta National.