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The Official Tiger Woods Thread

JB said:
Not surprising really. He owns the courses he owns if that makes sense. In unfamiliar settings, he seems to keep struggling (outside of Players).
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Not a surprise either. Last call before the PGA, last bit of confidence boost. If he can stress test that covert and puts up good numbers, he might have some confidence to pull that a bit more as well
 
I've read that Oak Hill is not a Tiger-friendly course. Anybody have thoughts on that?
 
I think it was a huge psychological blow for Tiger not getting in the last group on Sunday. His body language on Sunday was shocking all day. Fair enough three putted the first hole but it was hardly like it was from 20ft. He sulked off the green like he lost the thing there and then. It just seems he hasnt the mindset to chase on a Sunday when it comes to majors. The big crunch will come when he finally grabs a 54 hole lead going into the Sunday. If he fluffs it that time then even the most mentally prepared golfer ever would start to have his doubts if he can get the job done in a major anymore. But then again maybe we expect to much from him, 4 wins including the players and a WGC and 2 top tens in a major is still one awesome season. I suppose it comes with the territory for Tiger now as he set the bar that high in his pomp he will always be judged on them high standards for a while yet
 
Hawk said:
I've read that Oak Hill is not a Tiger-friendly course. Anybody have thoughts on that?
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I've heard that as well, I guess I just haven't heard why?
 
Neither is Sawgrass. I think he can win anywhere tee to green. It's on the green where he wins and loses unfamiliar courses.

He's not a great green reader. He's a great green rememberer, thus why he does so well on courses where he knows how it's going to break.

He needs an aimpoint class. That's right JB, I said it haha
 
Oak Hill with the rough up will eat him alive. Oakhill will mid rough can be had. Lots of dog legs and shot shaping very hard track if off line. The way he is playing is more smoke and mirrors right now so unless he straightens out the tee ball, I don't see a Win in the majors this year.

Hawk said:
I've read that Oak Hill is not a Tiger-friendly course. Anybody have thoughts on that?
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I can play TPC Sawgrass, you can get away with errant shots and still score. Not the case at Oakhill with his tee game
mward2002 said:
Neither is Sawgrass. I think he can win anywhere tee to green. It's on the green where he wins and loses unfamiliar courses.

He's not a great green reader. He's a great green rememberer, thus why he does so well on courses where he knows how it's going to break.

He needs an aimpoint class. That's right JB, I said it haha
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mward2002 said:
Neither is Sawgrass. I think he can win anywhere tee to green. It's on the green where he wins and loses unfamiliar courses.

He's not a great green reader. He's a great green rememberer, thus why he does so well on courses where he knows how it's going to break.

He needs an aimpoint class. That's right JB, I said it haha
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Tadashi70 said:
I can play TPC Sawgrass, you can get away with errant shots and still score. Not the case at Oakhill with his tee game
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Im with FK here. Unless something fixes his off the tee game quickly (and it could happen), Oak Hill might eat him alive if the rough is high. Not sure what it will look like yet however.

MW, I am not sure I would say Tee to Green right now. He is struggling bad off the tee (never his strong suit, but better than this), his wedge play looked average at best this week, and below average on Sunday. His iron play and FW wood play continued to look strong to me. That will be the blessing for him.
 
Tadashi70 said:
I can play TPC Sawgrass, you can get away with errant shots and still score. Not the case at Oakhill with his tee game
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Do you hit errant shots though? Not really haha. His errants are a bit off
 
I can't tell if he's struggling with driver, because he hasn't used it the past few tournaments consistently. US Open he used it only on a few holes I think? British Open was uh.. Two?

Before that was Sawgrass, and he didn't use it much there either that I recall.
 
mward2002 said:
I can't tell if he's struggling with driver, because he hasn't used it the past few tournaments consistently. US Open he used it only on a few holes I think? British Open was uh.. Two?

Before that was Sawgrass, and he didn't use it much there either that I recall.
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What does that tell you?
 
JB said:
What does that tell you?
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British wasn't a surprise based on conditions, US open, sub 7000 course where accuracy was a premium more than distance. He was hitting it well earlier this year, not sure what happened if he's hitting fairway woods just fine.

I guess Bridgestone will be a driver test accuracy wise?
 
I still am starting to wonder if Tiger will get the next one at Augusta or at St.Andrews in a few years.
 
I thought Paul Azinger made an interesting comment yesterday in saying Tiger is playing with less of his boyish enthusiasm and more like its a job lately. I thought that summed it up quite nicely.
As for his putting - he has looked terrible all year in majors. He's holding on too tight and wanting a "better than most" moment. It seems like he can't say "well I didn't play well enough to win" and forget it like Nicklaus could.
 
Tedfroop said:
I thought Paul Azinger made an interesting comment yesterday in saying Tiger is playing with less of his boyish enthusiasm and more like its a job lately. I thought that summed it up quite nicely.
As for his putting - he has looked terrible all year in majors. He's holding on too tight and wanting a "better than most" moment. It seems like he can't say "well I didn't play well enough to win" and forget it like Nicklaus could.
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I agree. But I think it's because Tiger hears the clock ticking down on his chances to catch jack. Physically he may not hold up long enough to catch jack and that may be getting to him a little.
 
Rand golf blogger I check out from time to time. Can't disagree with any of it. I'm just not sure if it's him not trusting driver or thinking it's better to play from the fairway for sure then chance it with driver.

Tiger is hurt by his conservative play off the tee.

I think the 2009 PGA Championship lost to YE Yang has set a precedent for Tiger. In that final round Tiger played extremely conservative off the tee while Yang continually blasted his driver well past Woods’ 3-wood and 2-iron off the tee. The end result was Yang had much closer approaches. Tiger could hit those longer approaches amazingly close given the distance he was hitting them from, but Yang would continually put them inside Tiger and that’s why he won.

It’s very difficult to play conservatively and be successful on Tour. Tiger can do it because he’s excellent with his 3-wood off the tee and is an excellent long-iron player. He also has a knack for getting hot with the putter from long distance.

But, he’s putting his odds against him when he plays conservatively. And eventually those long putts will not fall because they don’t consistently fall for anybody on Tour, ever. Perhaps his conservative play off the tee this year is due to not trusting his driver. Either way, he needs to be able to pull the driver out of his bag much more often and be able to hit quality shots with the driver. There’s a reason why he’s never won a major when he has not had the lead after the 3rd round.
 
mward2002 said:
Rand golf blogger I check out from time to time. Can't disagree with any of it. I'm just not sure if it's him not trusting driver or thinking it's better to play from the fairway for sure then chance it with driver.

Tiger is hurt by his conservative play off the tee.

I think the 2009 PGA Championship lost to YE Yang has set a precedent for Tiger. In that final round Tiger played extremely conservative off the tee while Yang continually blasted his driver well past Woods’ 3-wood and 2-iron off the tee. The end result was Yang had much closer approaches. Tiger could hit those longer approaches amazingly close given the distance he was hitting them from, but Yang would continually put them inside Tiger and that’s why he won.

It’s very difficult to play conservatively and be successful on Tour. Tiger can do it because he’s excellent with his 3-wood off the tee and is an excellent long-iron player. He also has a knack for getting hot with the putter from long distance.

But, he’s putting his odds against him when he plays conservatively. And eventually those long putts will not fall because they don’t consistently fall for anybody on Tour, ever. Perhaps his conservative play off the tee this year is due to not trusting his driver. Either way, he needs to be able to pull the driver out of his bag much more often and be able to hit quality shots with the driver. There’s a reason why he’s never won a major when he has not had the lead after the 3rd round.
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My thoughts exactly !! When tiger is aggressive i feel he is in his element. Watching him for so many years and seeing the ups and downs most of his success has come while aggressive. For years his concept was you can't win a tournament in Friday but you sure can lose one. But come the weekend he was on full tilt. I remember watching an interview of mickelson a long time ago when he lost a tourney from playing too aggressive and getting into trouble . He said that he wasn't going to change his game. He is aggressive and that's the only way he knows how to play.
As a huge tiger fan I get extremely frustrated when I see him get on the tee with a 4 iron on a 450 yard par 4 and have 190 in. How are you going to throw a dart from that far ? I know he is tiger but lets face it the odds are much better if you play approach shots from inside 150
 
I think we have a timid Tiger. He seems to be playing not to lose and to just hold on and hope others make mistakes. Once he makes a mistake on Sunday it's over he doesn't have that fire to take over the event. He is far to conservative.
 
Give it time. Many observers, merely 2 years ago were adamant he will never win again. Nevermind win 7 times and descend back up top of the world rankings.
 
triple_bogey said:
Give it time. Many observers, merely 2 years ago were adamant he will never win again. Nevermind win 7 times and descend back up top of the world rankings.
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They were? Even I never thought that.
 
triple_bogey said:
Give it time. Many observers, merely 2 years ago were adamant he will never win again. Nevermind win 7 times and descend back up top of the world rankings.
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I remember this, or at least people (ie. several tv talking heads) were wondering outloud whether he would win again. I thought they were nuts. I agree, something is not right with the guy but who would be surprised if he rips off 2 or 3 in a row? Not me.
 
Has the excuse train already left the station?

http://espn.go.com/golf/pgachampion...r-woods-criticizes-greens-oak-hill-early-look

[h=1]Tiger critical of Oak Hill greens[/h]
AKRON, Ohio -- Tiger Woods got a look at the site of next week's PGA Championship and didn't like what he saw on the greens.


Woods, who met with reporters Wednesday in advance of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, played a practice round on Tuesday at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., where the year's fourth major championship will be played next week.

Without prompting, Woods brought up the condition of the greens when asked a general question about the course.

"The greens are spotty, and it'll be interesting to see what they do because they were running just under 9 on the Stimp [Stimpmeter]," Woods said. "They don't have much thatch to them, so it'll be interesting to see what they do for the tournament and how much they're able to speed them up with kind of a lack of grass."

A Stimpmeter is a device used to measure the speed of greens, and for major championships, they typically run in the 12 to 13 range. For Woods to say they are at 9 means the green speeds are slow, something with which he traditionally struggles.

That was the case two weeks ago at the Open Championship, where Woods admitted he struggled to adapt to green speeds that got slower as the tournament progressed. He ended up tied for sixth, 5 strokes behind winner Phil Mickelson

"There were so many positives, how well I hit it and how well I played," Woods said. "Looking back on it, as I was saying on Sunday night [at Muirfield] with you guys, the only difference is I just didn't get the feel of those greens the last few days, and I didn't make the adjustments. That's my fault for not making the adjustments. You've got to make the adjustments and I didn't do it, and consequently I didn't win the tournament."

Woods has won the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club seven times, but his tie for eighth in 2012 was his first top-10 finish since he last won here in 2009.

Since 2007, the Bridgestone has been played the week prior to the PGA Championship, which was last played at Oak Hill in 2003. That year, Woods finished tied for 39th, his second-worst 72-hole performance in a major championship as a pro. (He tied for 40th at the Masters last year.)

"I just didn't remember it playing as long as it did when we played it yesterday," Woods said. "Granted, it always plays long when you don't have the adrenaline flowing and it's not a tournament situation. But I had my [yardage] book from the last time we played, and most of the times where I hit a 2-iron I was hitting 5-wood, and 3-wood is still 3-wood and driver is still driver."

Oak Hill endured a severe storm in early July that damaged bunkers and caused a tree to fall on the eighth green. Seven holes on the East Course, site of the tournament, were flooded.

"They just don't have a lot of grass on them," Woods said of the greens. "So not going to push them now and save them for tournament week. And I'm sure by Monday they'll get them up to speed. They're looking to get them at around 12 and 13 [on the Stimpmeter], but you don't want to do it for two weeks with how they are right now. Just save them for the week of the tournament."

Woods will play the first two rounds of the Bridgestone with Japan's Hideki Matsuyama. His Thursday tee time is at 9:20 a.m. ET. Mickelson is grouped with Brandt Snedeker, last week's Canadian Open winner, and tees off at 1:40 p.m. with U.S. Open champion Justin Rose.
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9 on the stimp is slow but I'm sure they'll roll quicker come PGA time
 
Tadashi70 said:
9 on the stimp is slow but I'm sure they'll roll quicker come PGA time
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For his sake, I hope so. He has been leaving alot of putts short recently.
 
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