Tiger Woods Golfing Love Triangle Discovered Down Under

With the Presidents Cup complete, we need to spend some time talking about Tiger Woods and his golfing Love Triangle that developed in Melbourne.

For those of you who stressed out when reading the headline, you can relax. This is a 100% golf-related Love Triangle for Tiger Woods.

The 14-time Major Champion has always expressed his love for the Land Down Under and the 13th edition of the Presidents Cup returned the greatest golfers on the planet back to Royal Melbourne, the pinnacle of the Melbourne Sandbelt and the No.1 Ranked course in the country.

A triangle obviously has three points and so does this one: Tiger Woods, the Melbourne Sandbelt, and Match-Play Golf Formats.

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Named as the youngest captain in Presidents Cup history, Woods helped to lead the USA squad to a historic comeback victory over the International Team, the 16-14 point win capped off by an impressive 8-4 victory in the Sunday Singles matches alone. The victory is the 11th time the USA has won the Presidents Cup in 13 editions, marking their dominance over the International Squad.

Tiger’s leadership qualities were on full display in Melbourne, sitting out the Saturday Four-ball and Foursome sessions to fulfill his duties as a Captain and proving his trust in his American teammates to help spark the comeback without him.

But the biggest piece of the puzzle Tiger filled this week was his exceptional play, proving, just simply, there is nothing the Greatest of All-Time can not do.

It began with the Thursday Four-Ball session where Tiger paired himself with Justin Thomas in the first match of the entire event. It was a gutsy choice to select himself as his own Captain’s Pick, let alone go out and set the tone in the first match of the entire Presidents Cup.

Surprisingly, the Four-Ball format has been one area that Tiger has failed in over his lengthy Professional career. Prior to this week, Woods’ record in Four-ball matches was 14-22 for a 39% winning record which is staggeringly low for the best golfer of all time.

His record in the Foursome Format is slightly better, posting a 15-13-2 career record for a 50% win rate and an overall team record of 29-35-2. These records made it a very interesting decision for Tiger to send himself out first and try to set the tone for the Americans on the first morning of the competition.

Tiger has been around long enough to play in both the 1998 and 2011 Presidents Cup events hosted at Royal Melbourne. In those editions, he played in all eight possible sessions for a 2-6 record. Fairly poor for a man who loves the Melbourne Sandbelt so much.

Tiger put all these records to bed at Royal Melbourne last week.

He carried JT on his back through the Four-ball session, posting 6 birdies on his own as the pair won a total of 8 holes to convert a 4&3 victory over Australia’s own Marc Leishman and Rookie Joaquin Niemann. They then held on for a clutch victory in the Friday Foursomes session, combining for 5 birdies in difficult conditions at Royal Melbourne to post a vital point for Team USA.

The second part of this love triangle is Tiger’s ability in Match-Play.

Dating back to 1997, Woods boasts an incredible 54-20-2 Professional record for a 71% win rate and the ability to comfortably say he is one of the greatest Match-Play competitors of all time. This record includes Singles victories in the two previous Presidents Cups at Royal Melbourne, beating Greg Norman 1UP in 1998 and Aaron Baddeley 4&3 in 2011.

This year he faced the International teams best player from this year’s Presidents Cup, Abraham Ancer, who firmly believed he could beat the great Tiger Woods. For the first eight holes of the match, it looked like Ancer had the answer and could truly have a chance of taking Tiger down, keeping the match square and pushing Woods to the limit.

But what makes the great ones great is their ability to put the foot down in pressure situations, something Tiger has done many times throughout his career and Sunday at Royal Melbourne was no different.

Tiger piled on four birdies in seven holes to open the back nine and won four holes out of seven between holes 9-15 on the course. Ancer could only match with one hole of his own, Woods closing out the match in the most Tiger way possible: A long downhill putt that never looked like it was missing, finishing the match 3&2 and beginning the onslaught from Team USA in the singles matches.

If there was ever any doubt that Tiger was one of the Greatest Match-Play competitors of all-time, then his 3-0 drubbing of his International opponents squashed any of those doubts.

The final part of the golfing Love Triangle is Tiger’s love for the Melbourne Sandbelt.

In his Post-Tournament Press Conference, Woods described the layout at Royal Melbourne as “beyond a dream,” and that it was “hard, fast, difficult, but extremely fair.” The firm and fast greens suited the better iron players, penalizing those who could not control their shot shapes and trajectory. With Tiger being one of the best iron players to ever play the game, this obviously played into his hands.

Woods made the tough Composite Course at Royal Melbourne (12 holes from the West course + 6 from the East course) look like a walk in the park. He holed putts whenever he needed to, moved the ball with draws and fades on appropriate holes and rarely made a mistake if any. The course was perfect for Tiger and he took full advantage.

This is not the first time Tiger has performed to the highest level on the Melbourne Sandbelt.

Woods was victorious in the 2009 Australian Masters just down the road from Royal Melbourne, at the equally impressive Kingston Heath layout. He also posted a T4 placing at the 2010 Australian Masters which was held on another of the Melbourne Sandbelt courses, the Victoria Golf Club.

Combine those impressive outings with his Singles Match-Play record in Presidents Cups and his 3-0 record this past week, Tiger clearly outshines the world’s best golfers on some of the toughest courses in the world.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – DECEMBER 13: Playing Captain Tiger Woods of the United States team lines up a putt on the ninth green during Friday foursome matches on day two of the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne Golf Course on December 13, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images) /

Woods confessed his love for Australian golf way back in 2011, appearing in Australian Opens along the way and regularly holidaying in the Land Down Under.

So when the 2019 Presidents Cup converged on Royal Melbourne, the Love Triangle was reunited and the results were as good as you could have hoped. It was truly incredible to witness Tiger pick apart the tricky layout and spearhead the USA side in their historic comeback.

Next. The Presidents Cup is over… Looking ahead to what is Next. dark

As an Australian, I truly hope this is not the last time we see Tiger Woods play on our soil because it is not very often you get to see the Greatest of All-Time in anything, let alone golf. This week was a pleasure to watch and was just another chapter in the incredible career of Tiger.

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