Tiger Woods: The issues with his putting rear their head again
Tiger Woods performed admirably during the WGC Mexico is nearly all aspects of his game. The one that let him down was his poor putting.
It seems like Tiger Woods left his putting ability in the States, as makeable putts escaped him all week at the WGC Mexico. Even though he shot -8 and finished 13 back of the winner Dustin Johnson, there were opportunities all week for him to make it a much closer finish.
Early in his career, Tiger was one of the most consistent and confident putters of all time. If you had 1,540 putts from three feet and in, how many would you miss? 100? More? That still wouldn’t be terrible for mere mortals, if you missed around 6% of them. Not Tiger Woods. He missed three. That’s right, three. From 2002-2005, Tiger missed three putts from that range out of 1,540.
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Tiger Woods popularized the gate drill for putting. Watching him, it seemed like he never missed from three feet, and that he rarely missed from five. He was a machine. However, at the WGC this weekend, it was a different story.
Three putts can really hurt a golfer. Tiger had more than his fair share of them, finished with six different three putts. One of them was even a four putt!
Just going through the list of putts he missed during the final round Sunday is painful. 31 total putts, which was still better than his awful 35 on Saturday. Here are the notable Sunday misses. A 6-footer for birdie, a 10-footer for birdie as well. Then a three putt from 58 feet, which is understandable but still not great. Then missed a 4-footer for birdie, leaving himself a 4-footer for par that he thankfully made.
He misses didn’t stop there. A 5-footer, a 5-footer, a 6-footer, and then a two putt from 13 feet, all in a five hole stretch. Tiger found himself in situations like this all weekend. He hit 31 of 36 greens. If you heard that, you would think Tiger shot -14 under for the two days. Instead, he shot -3 under. It has been just over 20 years since Tiger had back to back tournaments with six three-putts.
That wasn’t the only rarity that happened to Tiger this weekend. With his 35 putts on Saturday, it was one of the highest amount of putts to be turned in during recent memory of a round that still finished under par. Luckily, Tiger was able to make a 7-footer for birdie on the last hole to get him to -1 under.
Tiger has started to show that the ol’ Tiger Woods that everyone is afraid of is lurking under the surface. He was 7th in strokes tee to green, and 1st in strokes gained on approach shots. Normally, a round like that by Tiger would have him in the hunt to win. The lack of putting ability crushed his chances. He was around 2 strokes lost on Sunday, and 2.5 strokes lost on Saturday.
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If Tiger is going to get back into the flow, he needs to figure his putter out. As the Players approaches and major season starts soon after, all eyes are going to be on Tiger and his putter to see if he can climb the leaderboard for another win.