Around The Links: What Happened To Tiger Woods?

Jan 25, 2014; La Jolla, CA, USA; Tiger Woods tees off on the fourteenth hole during the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course – South Co. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

Tiger Woods had a golf meltdown on Saturday at the Farmers Insurance Open where he narrowly missed carding a “Snowman”, and his worse 18-hole score on American Soil. Too make matters worse, the defending champion didn’t make the secondary cut, and wasn’t even on the property for the Sunday finale’. So what’s wrong with the World’s Number One golfer?

As golf fans, I think we put way too much pressure on Tiger to be the dominant player he was back in 2002. Unfortunately, Tiger is suffering from the same thing I am, age. We expect him to show up at every event with his game honed, and if he isn’t in the final group on Sunday afternoon with a chance to win, we are disappointed, and deem it a failure.

In years past, Tiger would have viewed his performance on Saturday at Torrey Pines as a huge failure, but he appears to have learned over the last few years how to take it in stride, and go on to the next event, which he has done.

It doesn’t appear that Tiger Woods spent his entire off-time this year as he did in the past, hitting countless golf balls, playing practice rounds to prepare for the season, and honing his game to the championship level that we are accustomed to seeing. He spent time relaxing, time with his family, and will have to get the rust off his game in real-time like the rest of us.

Pondering Tiger’s Torrey problems

"With Woods, there has been so much greatness, so few failures, that poor rounds and poor tournaments typically become a bigger deal simply because they are so rare. The nature of golf suggests that Woods should have had far more days like this, far more lousy tournaments."

Hank Haney thinks Tiger Woods’ muscle-gain is bad for his golf game

Shane Bacon at Yahoo Sports “Devil Ball Golf” filed this report yesterday where Tiger’s old swing coach chimed in in what is wrong with his golf game. Hey…every one has an opinion!

"“My opinion is he did too much of that,” Haney said. “He does a lot of the gym stuff. I know you need to do some for golf, no doubt about it. You need to be in shape, you need to avoid injury, but my opinion is he really overdoes that. … I look at him now and a lot of guys mentioned on the telecast, he looks bigger this year. I think Peter Kostis mentioned that. He looks like he’s gained more muscle mass. When he was thinner and younger he was actually faster then. The strength maybe helps you get out of the rough but I’d agree that he’s overdone it. But he loves to work out.”"

Tiger Tracker: 2014 Dubai Desert Classic

Tiger Woods has moved on, taking his game to Dubai, and The Dubai Desert Classic where he will tee it up with Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, and take his turn at playing with the best on the European Tour. Phil Mickelson went over, and was one “Phil Shot” away from bringing home a trophy. Maybe Tiger can one-up Lefty and bring the hardware home.

You can follow Tigers game in the Far East this week at the Golf Channel.com where they have the “Tiger Tracker” which will provide tweets, and news from Dubai.

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