tiger woods masters

tiger woods masters

tiger woods masters - Tiger Woods talks a good game at Masters but his words sound hollow, Tiger Woods has come to Augusta National this week to win the Masters. He is confident of breaking Jack Nicklaus's record of 18 major championship victories. The world has not seen the best of him yet.


"I believe in myself," he said, 48 hours before he will step on to the first tee alongside Graeme McDowell and Robert Allenby in pursuit of his 15th major championship victory. "There is nothing wrong with believing in yourself. God, I hope you guys [the media] feel the same way about yourself. That is the whole idea – that you can always become better."

The message, straight from the mouth of the four-times Masters champion, had a familiar ring but the reaction it wrought did not. In years past, the self-affirming proclamations of the world's greatest living golfer were read as gospel, as if they had somehow been chiselled in granite and handed down from the nearest mountain top. This year they carried all the import of a soundtrack playing in an airport lounge. People could hear his words, but were they really listening? It seems not.

"No," declared Ian Poulter when asked if Woods would finish inside the top five come Sunday afternoon. "Not this year."

He added: "He hasn't done it for a while, but I think that if he starts to hole the putts at the right time you are going to see the Tiger of old and that is dangerous. But I don't see it this week – I just don't see it myself."

There was plenty more scepticism where that came from, though none of the players, coaches or hangers-on milling around outside Augusta's famous old clubhouse was as bold as the bold Englishman when it came to giving voice to their thoughts on the current state of Woods's game.

Full credit to the Englishman for his honesty. In previous years one might have feared for his chances should he find himself in the final pairing on Sunday alongside Woods, who has made a lifetime habit of making his most public critics dine out on their words, but perhaps not this year.

 

It is not just that Woods has not won a golf tournament anywhere in the world for almost 18 months and it is not even that he has fallen to No7 in the world rankings. It is simply that he no longer wears an aura that left his opponents a couple of shots behind standing on the first tee.

Once upon a time he cut a God-like figure when he strolled on the practice range at Augusta. As he made that same walk on Tuesday he looked like just another pro – a highly talented athlete, no doubt, but not someone who would strike fear this week into the Ian Poulters of the golfing world.

For this loss, the former world No1 has no one to blame but himself, although there are some who would blame Sean Foley, a hitherto obscure coach whom Woods hired last autumn to help overhaul his swing.

The exact details of what they have been working on together – greater body rotation and a more upright swing – would stretch the technical expertise of a Nasa engineer but the results thus far are easily interpreted by anyone with the ability to read a golf tournament leaderboard; one top-five finish in the past nine months and that came against a weak field at the Australian Masters in Melbourne.

Woods's best finish this season is a tie for 10th place at the Bay Hill Invitational two weeks ago – a satisfying record for, say, a PGA tour drone in his rookie season. But it is scant return for a man of Woods's natural gifts and one that has had the pro-Tiger mob baying for Foley's sacking.

Yet if the likes Hank Haney have been publicly sceptical about the changes embarked upon by Woods and his successor the most important voice in the debate remains resolute.

"We have changed a lot, from the stance, to the grip, to where the club needs to be throughout the entire golf swing and what the body is doing – that last part is way different to what I used to do, and that has been the most difficult change," Woods said. "But as far as working with Sean – he is a great dude, he really is. He knows a lot about a lot. He is very philosophical and it is always fun to pick his brain."

There is always something to be admired about loyalty, especially when it is shown in the face of such outcry, but Woods is not an unaware man. He knows his golfing history and he is well aware of the legacy that he has created over the past 15 years.

He knows, too, there is a time when the philosophical musings and the practice range "fun" with his coach must end, and the winning must start.