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Tiger Scewered By His Driver

John — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:04:30 +0000

Talk about falling on your own petard! Tiger had his first win in his first tournament of the year in Abu Dhabi just about sewed up. He was playing well and tied for the lead going into the final round on Sunday when up popped the boogie man – his wayward driver.

I’ve been vocal in stating that Tiger will win a lot this year, including at least one major, as long as he’s healthy. I never imagined, with his body healed and plenty of practice time that his driver wouldn’t fall into line. On Sunday, Tiger hit only 2 of 12 fairways. That’s TWO in case it hasn’t sunken in yet. As a result he was putting to save pars. The fact that he lost by only 2 shots probably says something good about the rest of his game.

Modern Tour golf is just too competitive these days for anyone, even Tiger in his prime, to be able to win without keeping the big dog in line. How can the best player of our times not be able to hit a driver straight. I put this in the category of Bill Belichick not being able to put together a decent defense for the last 3 years. You could also argue for both the Patriots and Tiger Woods that they’re not even moving in the right direction over that time period. Can Tiger get any worse with his driver? Will he become the 21st Century version of Ian Baker-Finch?

Tiger has every tool to fix his driver problems at his disposal; swing gurus, the best of modern club technology, slow motion video, shot trackers and probably a lot more items we don’t even know about. Maybe Tiger should talk Nike into letting him try one of the TaylorMade Rocketballz 3-woods. If he can hit it 90% of what Dustin Johnson can he won’t need a driver!

Greatest Golf Match Ever

John — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:38:59 +0000

If you’ve been watching pro golf for the last 10 years, you’ve been watching two of the greatest golf matches of the last 50 years and perhaps the next 50. Confused? Let me explain.

How many times have you heard ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could watch Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods go head to head in their respective primes’. Nice, but not possible. However, we have something even better, we have been watching Jack and Tiger match their careers for 10 years. It’s been exciting and is probably still a draw.

I predicted earlier in the year that Tiger would be back if he was physically OK. His win a couple of weeks ago in California demonstrated that. It’s also important that he won in typical Tiger fashion, making clutch shots down the stretch, birdieing the last two holes to beat Zach Johnson. Next year, if he stays healthy, he’ll win one major, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins two. That would put him only a couple of majors away from tying Jack. Welcome to the 4th quarter of the greatest golf duel in history.

A quick recap. Tiger has 14 majors compared to Jack’s 18. Jack got number 15 in 1978 at age 38 when he won the British Open by a two shot margin over Ben Crenshaw, Raymond Floyd, Tom Kite and Simon Owen. Jack’s previous major was in 1975. Tiger won his last major, the US Open, in 2008. He’ll be 36 in 2012. It’s been 3 years since he won a major, just like Jack at about the same age. Looks to me like this career match is about dead even, particularly if Tiger wins in 2012. If he gets at least one Major next year we will be in for one heck of a finish in this great rivalry.

If Tiger does beat or tie Jack, then we’re seeing the beginnings of the next great golf match; Tiger vs. whoever is going to beat his record. If Tiger wins, say 19 majors, it may seem impossible that anyone will ever beat that. But don’t count on it. What’s the old saying, ‘Records are made to be broken’. Stay tuned, we’re just hitting the back 9 on Sunday in the greatest rivalry ever and witnessing the beginning of the next one!

Greg Norman Stirs The Pot

John — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:28:21 +0000

(click picture for Huff Post Sports article)

Leave it to the Shark to try and stir up some controversy before the upcoming President’s Cup competition in Australia. He’s made it very public that if he were captain of the US side he wouldn’t have picked Tiger. With one comment he’s verbally face slapped both Freddie Couples and Tiger Woods. (read the full story HERE at Golf.com)

Greg is no dummy, so why would he put that out there? I suspect it’s not Greg the golfer we’re hearing, but rather Greg the businessman. As good as he was as a Tour player, you could make a very strong case that he’s been more successful building a business empire that includes golf equipment/apparel, wine, restaurants, beef, course design, and real estate development to name a few. A savvy entrepreneur knows hype before a big match can do a lot for ratings and get you buckets of free publicity.

Golf has always prided itself on being a gentlemanly game. When speaking about the competition, you don’t hear pros putting one another down or saying how they’re going to kick someone’s behind. Golf is too unforgiving for trash talkers to last very long. There are Golfing Gods out there and they don’t take kindly to fingers in the chest.

Greg should know better than to talk about the other Captain’s picks. Maybe he’s been watching too much NFL, NHL and NBA and has forgotten golf’s unwritten code of conduct. Or, maybe, he’s just trying to stick it in the face of the Golfing Gods that took so many Green Jackets from him!

Tiger’s Path Back To The Top

John — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:51:35 +0000

There’s probably only one thing in golf that Freddie Couples knows more about than Tiger Woods, climbing back up to the top. Tiger knows only playing, winning and almost winning. He doesn’t like to go to tournaments these days knowing he may not make the top 20, or 50 or even miss the cut.

Since he was 5, Tiger won or almost won everything. If he narrowly missed, he came back next time and destroyed the field. That’s been the one constant in his game…until now. That’s the unfamiliar, uncharted territory he has to cross to get back to where he was and his friend Freddy Couples is trying to tell him that. I can imagine Freddy telling Tiger, ‘I’ve been down so many times that I know a lot more about coming back than you do. Take it from me, you’ve got to go play tournaments – lots of tournaments – to get back to numero uno. Practicing in obscurity is not going to cut it’.

I just experienced this in a minor way in my own game. I used to play in leagues for many years, but then life came along and I haven’t competed in much of anything other than scrambles and the occasional four ball. My wife and I recently moved and now belong to a classic Donald Ross course where I’ve just started playing in friendly competition. There’s not really anything at stake, but the fact that it’s competition changes everything. A 3 foot putt looks a lot longer. A tight fairway looks as wide as a sidewalk with your opponent or partner watching. But, the more you play the easier it gets because you get used to it.

Sort of like flying in a plane. Don’t fly for 5 years and then see how you feel about getting on that first flight. You’ll be looking for valium or a double shot. Start flying every week and in a couple of months you can fall asleep before take-off and not wake up until you land.

Somebody in Tiger’s camp besides Freddie has to step up and tell him the truth. Tiger, if you want to get back on top then go play tournaments. Swallow your pride and play your way back. You don’t like coming in fiftieth, too bad, suck it up and go do the hard work. Tiger’s used to the hard work being the 8 hours a day he practiced, now it’s about getting back on tour as often as possible, even if that means eating some humble pie for awhile.

If I’m Tiger’s manager and he really is healthy, then I tell him he’s got to start 2012 in Hawaii and keep his foot on the gas. Go out and get in the ring again. You’ll get hit a few times, but you were the best and it won’t take long before you’ve got your chops back.

Cheers for Freddy the Brave!

John — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:37:54 +0000

Who doesn’t like Freddy Couples, really? The pros like him, the spectators like him and the commentators like him.

He doesn’t have to do much but walk down the fairway and you can almost hear the crowd give a sigh of affirmation. I’d say he’s the embodiment of charisma.

Freddy is captain of this year’s President’s Cup team going to Australia. With Freddy at the helm you know the pros on the team are anxious to play because the mood will be laid back and a ‘no worry, mates’ atmosphere will prevail.

There is one problem for Freddy and that’s Mr. Woods. Not only is he a friend of Tiger’s, but he has tremendous respect for what he’s done for golf over a decade. So now that Tiger is only a shadow of his former self, do you bench him or put him on the team only to deprive an upcoming superstar of a spot they deserve based on their play in 2011? Not an easy decision, even for the smooth Mr. Couples.

In case you missed the recent news, Freddy has avoided the problem nicely and thrown the ball directly back into Tiger’s court. Great shot Freddy! He said publicly that he wants Tiger on the team, BUT…..Tiger has to go out and play in more tournaments before the President’s Cup competition. Freddy made it clear that just playing in the Australian Open the week before will not be enough to get him on the team.

Now that’s brilliant captaining in my estimation. You’ve stated you’d love to have Tiger, even want him, but that he has to get himself in to playing shape. Not many pros would argue with Freddy’s observation that you eventually have to play lots of tournaments to find your form. Why Tiger hasn’t embraced this is anyone’s guess. Does he still think he can show up just at Majors. With the majority of 2 years forfeited, Tiger has to start playing lots of competitive golf if he wants to get back on top and his friend Freddy is clearly trying to give him a push in the right direction!

More cool Freddy stuff below:

Total ShotmakingThe Golfer’s Guide to Low Scoring by Fred Couples.

Get this hot Freddy item now: Fred Couples Autographed/Hand Signed Golf Ball!

Highly recommended Golf Channel DVD: Playing Lessons From The Pros: Fred Couples.

Tiger’s Plight and British Open Prediction

John — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:33:46 +0000

Royal St. George's Golf Course

It’s clear to anyone who’s paying attention that Tiger is one hurting dude physically. As I wrote before the Masters, it started to become clear this year that Tiger’s playing problems had nothing to do with his indiscretions and everything to do with his beat up body. Tiger is the first of the new era of ‘power’ torque players and he’s the first to pay the price that it takes on your body. Golf isn’t a contact sport, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt playing the game.

We’ll all have to wait and see if Tiger’s body can heal enough that he can return to competition. It’s not clear at this point. Tiger never opens up about his personal situation, life or feelings so we’re not going to get the real story from him. We’ll just have to wait and see. Given his time away from the game this year already, I don’t expect him to be win anything in 2011 even if he does come back.

It’s going to take a full off season of getting ready and a decent early season schedule for him to return to form. The next major he has a real shot at will be the 2012 Masters. In the meantime his fall down the rankings will continue. Will we ever know just how much that hurts his ego? Guys that he could beat 9 out of 10 times are passing him left and right with every tournament played.

Besides having one of the best players to ever pick up clubs sidelined we’re missing the opportunity to see how the new young guns stack up to Tiger in his prime. If Tiger was in full form of 3 years ago, would Rory still have run away with the U.S. Open? We’ll never know just like we don’t know how Tiger and Jack in their respective primes would have fared against each other. I guess that’s what keeps the sport pundits in business.

Without Tiger, what does one make of the British Open this year? I think we can rule out the old guys this year, none are showing the form needed to win an Open. What can you conclude other than it’s up for grabs – maybe someone from the top 5 world rankings, another unknown or anyone in between. A couple of guys are hot as of late, but past Opens have proven that doesn’t mean much unless you are a hall of famer.

Royal St. George’s is a classic links venue, with nary a flat spot, lots of pot bunkers and rough that looks like a hay field. But the real factor in any links course is always the weather. If it’s benign the long hitters will fly over most of the trouble and have an advantage. If the wind blows then it’s anyone’s open to win. Bottom line, don’t expect to see an American hoist the Claret Jug this year.

Tiger Versus Jack

John — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:58:00 +0000

The big question is still whether Tiger will beat Jack’s record in the Majors. We now know for sure that Tiger will not return to playing the way he did prior to 2009. Why? He’s got physical limitations. His swing style and the nature of modern golf have caught up to him. During the Masters interviews Tiger finally said very explicitly that he had to change his swing because he couldn’t physically swing the old way anymore. How did this happen?.

We have Jack Nicklaus to thank for that. No, he didn’t hit Tiger in the knees with a baseball bat. What Jack did was to change modern competitive golf strategy with his length. Jack did a lot of things to be one of the greatest ever, but key to his game was his ability to birdie so many par 5′s. They were almost gimmes for him, while golfers like Gary Player had to hit 3 irons where Jack was hitting wedge.

Tiger used the exact same approach to achieve his super dominance for so many years – blow it by everyone off the tee and reach the par 5′s in two. Now every young golfer realizes that to be special, you have to be long off the tee. Guys like Watson, Johnson, Quiros and a pack of others are following right in the same footsteps and why not, it works. Ask Bubba about that.

The downside is the toll long bombing apparently takes on the body. Tiger may not become the poster boy for the ‘winner of the most majors’, but instead for ‘how modern power golf ends careers prematurely’. It would be interesting for the PGA Tour to start looking into the effects of violent golf swings. Where’s the cutoff? Is a 300 yard drive safe while 320 is going to end your competitive career in 5 years.

If you think I’m reaching here, reflect on the other sports. All of them have developed ‘wear and tear on the body’ concerns as athletes have gotten bigger and stronger. By golf doing some research now it may save golfers’ health and help spur the development of new equipment like golf shoe soles that minimize knee twisting.

Back to Tiger versus Jack. Tiger started to look like his old self at the Masters then he tweaked his left leg and has been off his golf feet until this week. Tiger’s body started to break down sooner than anyone expected. His personal issues were a distraction and hid the fact for awhile that his legs were breaking down so badly. Now it’s all too clear that scandal didn’t derail Tiger, it was physical.

Does Tiger have a chance still to beat Jack? Certainly, but the odds are greatly reduced. Looking at it logically, a reduced Tiger only needs to win one major a year in 5 out of the next seven years. That’s a stretch for even the best pros, but it’s certainly possible for Tiger if his legs can hang on. His Masters performance showed me he has the skills, the uncertainty is his body.

Tiger Wood’s Interview on CNN International

John — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:50:25 +0000

Beginning this Thursday at 1 PM EST, CNN International will air an exlusive interview with Tiger Woods by CNN’s Shane O’Donaghue. From the short clips on the CNN site it looks like it was shot in mid-February at the Dubai Desert Classic.

To watch the clips or check the TV schedule click HERE.

Unfortunately, from the shorts posted on the website it looks to be the same standard issue interview for Tiger: his kids are the most important thing in his life, he wants to beat Jack’s record in the majors, the new young guns hit the ball a long way but don’t work it much and he’s in a much better place mentally this year than he was for the 2010 season. And, yes, his game is still a work in progress.

I’m still waiting for Tiger to open up a little when he’s interviewed, but that appears to be a club he doesn’t carry in his bag. I could believe that he was actually changing his psyche if he’d move off the scripted text in these interviews and let the force fields down a bit. Looks like the only way we’ll know more about Tiger is to watch how he plays.

Is the Pro Tour Doomed to Mediocrity?

John — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:14:07 +0000

Let me say upfront that I’m not suggesting that we won’t continue to have pro golf tours around the world. After all, we still have pro tennis. What I’m concerned about is that the PGA Tour(s) could decline in popularity as pro tennis has done for a couple of decades.

I see a couple of reasons why this might happen. The first is Tiger Woods, or more aptly the demise of Tiger Woods as a dominating golfer the likes of which we haven’t seen since Jack. We’ve become used to such a high level of competence, that it’s understandable that we would lose interest in anything less. Without Tiger, we are likely to see an endless parade of a different pro winning each week with no particular one winning very much. One could be forgiven in thinking the winner is just whoever gets hot that week not someone who has taken their game to a different level. For the first time in a long time, we have a world number one who hasn’t won a major. Is that a catalyst for increased TV ratings?

Could it be that there are so many good pros out there that it’s hard to be a standout anymore? Golf is a game of such inconsistency that it may be a long long time before and individual comes along who is consistently great the way Tiger was. Even if Tiger comes back to at or near where he was, it’s only a matter of time before age catches up with him and the pro tours are faced with reality – is golf interesting without a dominant player?

There are plenty of new up and coming players the likes of McIlroy, Ishikawa, Kaymer, Casey, Immelman, Johnson and Barnes to name a few. And therein may lie the professional game’s greatest threat. Professional golf is most interesting when someone reaches new heights, not when the ranks of those at lower altitudes grows and grows. It definitely increases the odds that no one will follow in Tiger’s footsteps.

Take Martin Kaymer as an example. He’s had an exciting productive career thus far, but to be a new superstar he has to be able to beat a legion of very good golfers on any given day. In Jack’s day, it seemed like he had to beat only a handful in any given tournament, even if that handful was of very high quality. Today, it’s more like 30 players who are very capable of winning over any 4 day stretch. Is that really interesting?

I suppose I’m like a lot of followers of the Pro Tours. I’ll always be interested in watching the Majors, because they are, well, the Majors. The next most interesting thing after that is what will Tiger do? If he falters then I can’t see getting very excited if pro golf continues the way it has for the last 18 months.

Is it me, or do current tournament winners seem to be whoever can hang on not who can mount a charge on Sunday? In the final analysis, too many rich tournament purses may have attracted too many good athletes to the game. Combine that with golf’s fickle nature and you get- BORING! In this case, I hope I’m wrong.

Tiger Showing Signs of Life

John — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:39:09 +0000

Tiger didn’t win in Dubai and he finished Sunday with a double bogey on 18, but all things considered he showed some definite improvement in his game compared to Torrey Pines. It was particularly telling that when he spoke after his round on Sunday, he said he felt the swing changes were really starting to take hold. He also acknowledged, counter to his usual form, that his problems occurred in Dubai when the wind picked up. Tiger has not traditionally given any details about his swing issues and I think being more open is good for him and good for the game.

Tiger’s chipping was much better than it was at Torrey Pines. His putting started to look sharp as well and was better than the stats might indicate. He just missed or lipped out a lot of putts that could have just as easily gone in. Don’t forget that he bested both Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer when he was paired with them for the first two rounds. Beating number 1 and 2 in the world for 2 days had to boost his confidence at least a little.

He hasn’t indicated where he’ll play next, but looking at the schedule I’d guess it will be at the World Golf Championships in Arizona February 23-27. If Tiger can build on what he did in Dubai, he’s got a shot at being in the hunt at Augusta in April.