The Tiger Woods who lost in the first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship played as if he doesn’t believe in Tiger Woods anymore.
Ever since Earl told his little boy that he wasn’t like everybody else, that he was special, his son has dutifully conjured otherworldly shots, sunk implausible putts, got up-and-down as if an illusionist, and done it all when it’s counted the most.
He did those things because he believed he not only could, but would.
And every great achievement only served to further reinforce his faith in Tiger Woods.
But now doubt is all he has left in his golf bag.
Woods is playing as if he doesn’t know if he’ll ever find the champion he used to be, or whether he even exists anymore.
That’s a truth not just written in bogeys on his scorecard, but betrayed every time he makes too many practice swings before a straightforward shot, or winces as he looks at the way the ball leaves his clubface, unsure of where it’s going to leave him.
Or by the way he can’t stop getting off to bad starts; can’t stop nervously chewing the inside of his lip as he stands over a putt; can‘t stop muffing routine chips.
“I blew it,” Woods said after losing to, of all people, the old Danish campaigner, Thomas Bjorn, in the first round in Tucson.
He’s rarely spoken truer words.
Because this latest failure -- in a string of failures dating back to the tabloid scandal that consumed his life -- isn’t about Sean Foley’s geometrically obsessed swing theories.
Even if Woods’ estranged former coach, Hank Haney, thinks so.
"For all the talk of Tiger's poor driving the last 6 years, I have never seen him drive it out of play with a match or tournament on the line," Haney tweeted after Woods flew a three-wood into thorny desert bushes on the first playoff hole to effectively hand Bjorn the match.
Really, Hank? And what of the (very) wide-right drive he hit at the short par-4 15th at this very event two years ago, the one that sailed out of bounds and put Tim Clark three up with three to play?
Maybe a better question to ask would be why Woods is so terrified of hitting hooks that he refuses to release the club correctly as he did in his prime?
And that is symptomatic of the no-man’s land Woods finds himself in: stuck between the residue of Haney’s swing and Foley’s conflicting ideas.
Yet even this excuse, which Woods trots out often in explaining away his inconsistencies, is thin.
When he’s on the range with Foley, Woods strikes the ball beautifully.
He doesn’t think about what he’s doing, he just sees the shot and executes.
But when he steps inside the ropes, he’s suddenly wracked with doubt.
“A lot,” he responded in Tucson when asked how often he thought about mechanics rather than the target when he was over the ball. “Every time.”
For his own sanity, Woods tells himself -- and anyone who’ll listen -- that his struggles are all due to “the process,” hurdles in learning a new swing.
“That's what I went through with Hank and went through with Butch (Harmon). It took 18 months to a couple of years. Still in the process, still working on it,” he said.
The difference in both of those cases is that Woods didn’t really duplicate the new theories for some time. When he did, he went on long winning streaks.
The truth is that he now has enough of a grasp of what Foley teaches to be able to execute.
But he’s got stage fright.
“Pissed, that’s where I’m at right now,” he said angrily after losing to Bjorn.
“The fairway is, what, 200 yards wide, and I can't put the ball in the fairway.”
But the wayward drive on the 19th hole wasn’t even the most egregious mistake Woods made in Arizona.
“Two easy up-and-downs on the back nine I didn't make. Putt at 17 I should make every time; I didn't do that,” he said.
Bjorn, who has felt the shadows lengthening on his career, managed to get up-and-down on both those holes, Woods wasn’t close. He should know better than anyone that there’s no competing at this level with that kind of short game.
And for the most clutch putter in the history of the game -- a man Luke Donald once said wills the ball into the hole -- to be suddenly so vulnerable on the greens again speaks to the lack of faith.
The great putters will tell you that putting is about confidence.
Bjorn, who counts Woods as an old friend, could see what was wrong.
And, influenced by the string of excellent shots Woods hit in between the bad ones -- including a magnificent birdie on the 18th to force extra holes -- how it could all change very quickly.
“A lot of people put question marks if this guy is going to win golf tournaments again,” Bjorn said.
“I think we all know that he's going to win golf tournaments again. And when he lands on one, there's no stopping him.
“He'll get his confidence up and then he'll get straight back to where he plays his best.
“But it can take time.
“And sometimes it changes in a week, you know, that's all you need sometimes is just one week where it comes together.”
