There are those who seem to think that Tiger Woods is washed up.
"Right now, he is a very good, ‘average’ pro golfer,” Johnny Miller told the Desert Sun over the weekend, “And that's not very complimentary to say about him.”
Miller went on to add that while Woods may rebound from the devastation of last Thanksgiving’s sex scandal and win tournaments again, the scar tissue from the trauma won’t ever completely heal and he’ll never again dominate his sport.
While I agree that Woods has at times this year looked very much like just another touring professional, I very much disagree that the devolution is irreversible.
Not only do I think Woods will bounce back, but I think he’s going to win a tournament soon, maybe as soon as this week.
He’s got history on his side; no golfer has been hotter in August.
Since 2006, Woods has played 17 tournaments on the PGA Tour after returning from the British Open and won 12 of them.
Twelve wins is an outstanding career for most professionals. To put that feat in context, consider that veterans like Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott have toiled for more than a decade for seven Tour wins.
In the five tournaments Woods didn’t win in that stretch -- he didn’t play the second half of the 2008 season after having knee reconstruction surgery -- he was runner-up four times.
The only tournament he didn’t have a chance of winning was last year’s Deutsche Bank event outside of Boston, where he finished in a tie for 11th.
There are two reasons that explain his post-British Open successes: the first is that Woods has always played better in the heat, on fast, hard courses with slick greens. The second is that he loves the venues the Tour visits in August and September.
Woods likes to say that certain courses “fit my eye.” If that’s the case, then Firestone Country Club’s South course -- where he will play this week in the Bridgestone Invitational -- is the ultimate in eye candy for him.
Woods has played 10 tournaments on the tree-lined classic layout in Akron, Ohio, lifting the trophy a staggering seven times.
He’s never finished worse than fourth, never shot worse than 71 and since 1999, his stroke average at Firestone is 67.5.
Caddie Steve Williams, for one, believes a return to Akron is just what Woods needs after getting off to the worst start of his career, going winless in seven starts.
“I’m hoping a course he feels very comfortable on will trigger off a great second half to the year,” he told me on Sunday.
Woods has spent the two weeks since indifferent iron play and a balky putter cost him whatever chance he may have had at St Andrews working on his game in Orlando.
He’s reportedly pleased with the results and eager to get to Akron.
Woods still doesn’t have a coach but he does have a pair of eyes watching him.
They belong to 23-year-old Corey Carroll, a neighbor whom Woods befriended when Carroll was a junior golfer who’d beat balls all day on the range at Isleworth Country Club. It’s the sort of character trait a workaholic like Woods appreciates.
Carroll was the man jogging alongside Woods when the first post-scandal photograph of the golfer at his Isleworth home was taken.
“Cornelius was a good junior, not quite good enough to make it (as a pro), but he’s as smart a kid as you’re ever going to meet and he knows the golf swing very well,” says well-known instructor Jim McLean.
“I’m sure he knows what Tiger’s trying to do with his swing and is helping him do that.”
The other reason I don’t think Woods will go winless this year is that sooner or later he’s going to come to terms with the fact that his marriage is over.
We’re talking about a man who’s never lost at anything in his life. Losing at marriage hurt him more than he could’ve imagined.
This, to me, has been the single biggest cause behind his poor performances this year. David Feherty, the television analyst closest to Woods, echoed this in a recent interview with the Argus Leader newspaper in South Dakota.
“There’s nothing wrong with his swing,” the Irishman said, “There’s nothing wrong with anything except the head full of slamming doors that you have when you go through a divorce, especially when there’s children involved.”
“It affects everybody. I think he’ll recover from it faster than most people because he’s so mentally strong. But golf’s a game that’s played with long periods of time between shots . . . there’s a lot of time for your mind to wander.”
Where Feherty and Miller agree on the subject of Woods is that his emotional frailties have manifested mostly on the greens.
"He doesn't have the yips,” Miller was quoted as saying, “But all those putts he was magically just making in his impressive career are now lipping out. It is that fine a line between winning and being very ordinary."
The statistics don’t lie. In 2008, Woods made an astonishing 93.5 percent of putts from 5 to 15 feet. This year he’s converting only 44.3 percent.
But it’s not just that the putts aren’t falling.
He’s not been hitting approaches very close.
From 100 to 125 yards, where Woods in ‘08 found the putting surface just under 90 percent of the time, he’s now at a very pedestrian 61 percent, falling from first to 192nd on the Tour.
And where he led the field in proximity to the hole from that distance -- 12’5” in ‘08 -- this year he’s not only hitting significantly fewer greens, but he’s more wayward with those he does hit, averaging 18’8” from the hole.
Then there’s scrambling, where Woods regularly paces the Tour. In ’08 he was getting up and down 45.5 percent of the time from inside 30 yards. This year he’s converting only 14.3 percent of the time, dropping to 194th on Tour.
Hitting fewer greens, not hitting the ball as close on the greens he does hit, not getting up-and-down when he misses greens and not making putts all adds up to a scoring average (71.20) that’s three-and-a-half shots worse than his ‘08 average.
But can the futility last?
I don’t think so, and neither does Feherty.
“People ask me all the time, ‘You think Tiger will be back?’ Yeah. I think so,” Feherty said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like him. I know he’s human now. For a while there I even doubted that.
“But he’ll be back.”
