Tiger Woods steady despite inconsistent start at THE PLAYERS

Tiger Woods has made it through the first two rounds of THE PLAYERS Championship relatively unscathed. While his future at TPC Sawgrass is out of his hands, he sounds confident in the changes he needs to make going forward.

Tiger Woods is so cool his sweat sparkles. Honest. After his second round, which he played in 1-under par, which put him right on the cut line, he was perspiring during his press conference. And it looked like someone had put sparkle gel on his face. It was rather mystifying. Maybe it’s the sunscreen. Maybe it’s something his daughter Sam gave him. Maybe he really does have just that much star power. Who knows. I didn’t have the guts to ask.

However, one thing was clear. He was unsatisfied with his iron play.

"“I didn’t hit the ball close enough today,” he said to media after his round. “I had sand wedge on 10, reachable par-5 at 11, sand wedge again at 12, and I played those even par. That’s not the start I wanted to have, and, unfortunately, kind of went the rest of the day the same way.”"

He said his ball flight wasn’t right. He said that he still isn’t hitting his approach shots close enough.

“I’m more frustrated in the fact that I had some shorter irons in there, and I didn’t hit any of them close,” he said. “I should be hitting them inside flag length, and I didn’t do that at all today.”

Perhaps one reason is that he has to limit his practice time these days.

“I just can’t stand over for that long, bent over for that long,” he explained. “It doesn’t hurt, but the muscles get sore and tight but, no, I certainly can’t log in the hours I used to, and it’s part of being 42 as well.”

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What that may mean is that it will take Woods a bit longer than fans want for him to find the winner’s circle. He knows he will have to post in the 60s to move up to the top of the leaderboard. Only Woods knows if he can do it.

"“This golf course is so demanding, and it puts so much stress on you from tee to green, it’s very stressful, a very stressful ball striking golf course because there really isn’t kind of — there really isn’t a let off,” he added. “You really have to be committed and be focused on what you’re doing.”"

Woods has an uphill battle on the weekend, assuming the cut line does not move lower. In addition, there are some good names at the very top of the leaderboard, and they aren’t going to give up spots just because Woods wants an improved position.

When asked about the frustrations of getting all aspects of his game together at the same time, Woods went philosophical.

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“That’s golf, unfortunately. If we were able to put all of our facets of the game together I think there would be a lot more tournament winners out here,” he said. “But this is just part of the job. We have to figure out a way to put it together, and I have not done that consistently this year so far.”

Should the cut stay at 1-under par, Woods has two more days to climb over other proven golfers, including Jason Day, who is 8-under par, and Matt Kuchar and Sergio Garcia, who are 7- under.

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