Tiger Woods Shoots 82 And Misses The Cut At The Phoenix Open

It’s gone from bad to disastrous for Tiger Woods, whose time at the Waste Management Phoenix Open is over. After an opening round 73 he shockingly put up an 82 on Friday and walked off the golf course with a three-stroke cushion on last place. That’s right folks the fourteen-time major champion is in dead last. Less than eighteen months ago he was the game’s highest ranked player and shot a 61 at Firestone. After today’s unfathomable round that 61 may as well have been eighteen years ago.

Not every golfer can bring their best game to the course everyday, but no one saw this coming. Even if you weren’t a believer in his swing changes and is health, to predict that he’d shoot an 82 and sit in last place would border on the insane. This is Tiger Woods, he shattered the record for margin of victory at Augusta and won a U.S. Open on one leg. Now he’s fallen all the way to the bottom of a leaderboard. Yes the high score stands out and he’s shot in the eighties before, but the fact that he is on the verge of a last place finish is something that I thought we’d never see.

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If you didn’t believe that we’re dealing with a different Tiger Woods than today’s round was reality punching you in the gut. He’s reconstructed his game before, but never has it been this bad. Tiger met the media following the round to try and give us some answers to what went wrong.

"“I was caught in between old patterns and new patterns. It’s golf we all have days like this unfortunately mine was in a public forum. We all have days like this we take the good with the bad and on bad days like this you have to keep fighting.” (Credit PGATour.com)"

Through his many swing changes Tiger as always talked about being caught in between two different swing patterns, but never were the results this terrible. It’s not just his new swing, his short game is an absolute mess. The man who once holed maybe the greatest chip of all time on the 16^th Augusta, now can’t hit a basic chip shot. Some of his chips today looked more like a fifteen handicapper on a Saturday morning rather than the former number one player in the world.

Tiger’s had plenty of time to prepare for this week. He arrived at TPC Scottsdale only having played one competitive tournament since August. He’s had almost five months to prepare for his return to the PGA Tour and his mechanics are worse than ever. For Tiger only he knows the game plan in place to help right the ship

"“Hitting golf balls is one thing, playing at home is another and playing tournament golf is completely another. I’ve got to continue with the process, I’ve been here before. It wasn’t that long ago that I changed my swing with Sean (Foley) and I was player of the year a year ago. Have to keep things in perspective and sometimes it’s difficult to do that.” (Credit PGATour.com)"

He’s been here before? Him and I must be looking at different stat sheets, because he has never shot a score this high and never walked off a course sitting so low on the leaderboard. Woods wrapped up his presser by saying he’s going home immediately to work on things. Will that help? He’s had all this time to work on his game and the first time back out there he’s in last place. Tiger is not going to fix things chipping and pitching in his Florida backyard. He needs to be out there playing tournaments. Believe it or not he needs to learn how to perform under pressure again. Until that happens don’t expect the Tiger of old to return any time soon.

Next: Rory McIlroy Tops The Leaderboard At The Dubai Desert Classic

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