TW will plummet faster now because there are a lot of players right behind him in the rankings. The drop of his OWGR average is actually slowing down. Why because all of his 2009 PGAT wins (except BMW) have cycled off the two year period. The fact that he is inactive right now is his own fault. he had two tournaments to play and all he needed to do was finished 48th or better in both of them. 48th!!! for christ sakes. He could not even do that. If he finished 20th in either tournament, he would have qualified for the playoffs. It is BAD PLAY that is making his ranking plummet, not inactivity.
He could have gone to Scotland this week and play. he could go to Holland, Switzerland, etc to play in the next few weeks. Those tournaments would love to have him play. He constantly claims he needs to get “Reps”. He claims he is healthy. Opportunity knocks. But he ain’t answering the door. Don’t give the Inactivity BS. Because it simply is not true.
For the record, TW didn’t mind playing the Honda on sponsors exemption back when he was amateur. of course, he never has re-payed that invitation with an appearance while he was a pro.
FWIW since the Fire Hydrant. Tiger has not finished better than 4th in any official Tournament. Has not even finished in the top 10 a full field PGATournament. Yes he has T4 finishes in three majors, but they are not “full field PGA Tournaments” as they are not run by the PGATour. the Masters has only ~100 players, and about 10%-15% of them absolutely no chance of winning or even competing for the tournament. The US Open field is diluted with about 50-60 qualifiers that absolutely have no chance of winning for finishing in the top 20. Tiger Woods was THE WORLD CLASS PLAYER pre Fire Hydrant, but he is just another player right now.
Absolutely. And it’s his own fault he didn’t play the Sony or Honda or whatever. I never said it wasn’t. I’m just saying that because of that, his official ranking is much lower than his actual performance.
We are so used to seeing him win or contend almost every week that he looks like a bum now, but that’s because they still show every shot he hits, even when he’s having a bad week. Almost every other player gets to suffer in obscurity, and we only see them when they are playing well, so we don’t notice them missing five cuts a year.
Thank you for an EXCELLENT example of why you’re wrong.
Tiger’s current OWGR average, even with the 40-event minimum divisor, is
3.21. Because of the depreciation formula they use, Tiger’s 2009 BMW win is now worth 2.22 points, and his 2nd in the TC is worth only 1.82.
In other words, as good as those finishes were, they are HURTING his average now. If Tiger had played 45 events in the last two years, then having those events age off would HELP Tiger’s average. But since he is already well below the minimum divisor, any events that age off can only lower his average even more.
Tiger is one of only three golfers in the world top 50 who is in this situation, the other two being Manessero and Clark. Tiger has played by far the fewest events of anyone in the top 50.
So yes, his inactivity is what is making his ranking more than twice as low as his results warrant, and it’s getting worse, not better, as events age off. You are welcome to say it’s his own fault, but the math doesn’t care whose fault it is.
A prudent man would just stop posting, rather than try to make a case that racking up top 4’s in majors is no big deal because “they are not run by the PGA Tour.”
His BMW win is not hurting his OWGR avg. if he didn’t have those 2.22 points, his average would be 3.16 not 3.21. yes the 40 tournament divisor is hurting his average, but it has hurt his average for a very long time. It is his own fault for not playing tournaments. Results from 50 weeks ago hurts everyone averages not just Tigers so that argument does not hold any water. Mickelson’s avg is impacted at the TC is impacted more than TW’s finish in the BMW. It hurts everybody. Apples and apples.
And this is what TW ranking has been all summer, and projected ranking into November. You can see that the change each week is decreasing. The little blip was the WGC where he actually earned a few points:
you know, its funny that no one ever complained about the OWGR averages when Tiger was #1. He hasn’t played the full compliment of tournaments in a long long time. IMO, the OWGR does an outstanding job, but I would make some major and minor tweaks. One, make it 12 months ranking system, tournaments from 23 months ago should not be impacting the rankings whatsoever. yes a miss cut from 23 month ago is only marginally different than a win from 23 months ago. Neither should count. And 18 player events should not count.
Tiger’s 2nd place in the Chevron was worth 30 points, he only beat 15 players many of which were on sabbatical (like Stricker and Furyk). Those 30 points are impacted his avg by more 0.5 pts right now or else he would be outside the top 50.
I’ll take reading between the lines for $500 Alex. My intention is to say that the typical PGATournament has a deeper field from top to bottom than the said that the Masters and US Open fields. The fields at majors are diluted. with qualifiers, past champions, and/or club pros. The 140th ranked guy at a PGATournament has a better chance to win and compete that the 140th ranked guy at the USOpen.
Tiger is making about ~8th comeback since the fire hydrant this weekend. At the Frys.com tournament in Northern California.
In a auspicious start, he shot a 73, 2 over par to be T86 after round 1. He will probably have to shoot 70 or better to make the cut.
Frys.com has one of the weakest fields of the year on the PGATour thus far, and THE weakest if you consider only stand alone tournaments (not opposite field events). There is only one player ranked inside the top 40 (Paul Casey) and he is been playing poorly for most of the year.
Tiger was in the early wave today, but the second round has been delayed due to fog.
Fred Couples cannot be liking his Presidents Cup pick right now. he had to leave off the only American major winner this year (or the FEDEX Cup champion) in order to pick Tiger Woods, who is in jeopardy of not making the cut in what basically is a minor league event.
I don’t know; there are only half a dozen guys more than four shots ahead of him. If he could just have a round where he doesn’t lose a ball, he could make that up fairly easily.
I have to say, though, that I am surprised at how bad he looks. At his presser Wednesday, he (to his credit) removed every excuse he had for playing bad. He said his leg was 100%; he said he had been practicing hard; he said he had assimilated his swing changes and was now down to fine tuning.
Then he came out Thursday and looked exactly like he looked a year ago. His head was ducking, he was popping up drives, he took two shots to get out of a bunker, and he was missing drives wide right and left. And his putting was just average. I literally saw no evidence that he was any better than he was at last year’s BMW, let alone this year’s BMW. He can still hit great shots, but now it’s only every third or fourth hole.
I think he needs to dump Foley and go back to his original swing. I’m assuming the rumors are true about the Harmon swing putting too much strain on his knee, and the Haney swing is when he started dipping his head and missing his drives by a mile. I don’t care how good whatever Foley is trying to teach him looks on paper, it is clearly too complicated to repeat reliably under Fry’s pressure, let alone major pressure. If the best golfer who ever lived (which is what I think Tiger is) only hits fairways by accident after a year (off and on) of working with the new swing, then the swing is wrong for him.
Tiger won the Masters by 12 with his amateur swing — he should go back to that.
The early reports said that he wouldn’t play again this year. In the past, I’d credit his quick return to his Lone Wolf*-like regenerative ability. Now, it smacks of desperation.
Another -3 68 today. Has a shot at a top-20, but no way in hell is he winning this thing.
His age is starting to show. He did the right thing by making the most of his explosive talent when he had the chance, and now he has to adjust to being less strong, less focused, less precise, less…perfect. It’s a tough transition for any dedicated sportsman.
You almost have to feel sorry for ESPN. They bought into him early and now are in so deep that they can’t let go. Sports Illustrated, no problem. Literally a new face every week. If a star crashes and burns, they can let him go with no regrets (and it’s such a common occurrence that calling “jinx” is ridiculous). ESPN knows damn well that their golfing audience doesn’t give a damn about Lee Westwood or Hunter Mahan; they have no choice but to keep the faith and wait for a great rebirth that is just not going to happen. When you tout a -3 following a +2 as a spectacular rebound, you know you’re desperate.
Man, where the heck did Ernie Els come from?
Look, I like that series, and I can’t say Jason Voorhees every dang time, a’right?
“Tracking Tiger” is still on the website, and there are plenty of highlights of him (such as they are) on SportsCenter. I have no doubt that they should give it up, but this network eats, sleeps, and breathes hype…it’s not going to be easy. Heck, look how long it took them to stop buying into Brett Favre.
Most of his slow burn has been due to injury, and he’s always saved the best for the majors. He’ll spring back; the only question is how far. If he goes one more year without a major, I think it’s safe to write him off then.
T30th. Even though he closed with three 68s in a row, he fell further and further out of the lead after each round. 6 shots after Round 1, 7 shots after Round 2, 9 shots after round 3, 10 shots after Round 4.
T30 against this field has to be considered a failure for the week, especially after the way he built up expectations about how ready to play he was. He should play another Fall Series event before going to Australia, but after his round today, he said there is no chance of that. Big mistake, IMO.
Tiger is leading the Australian Open late in the second round. Looks like Fred Couples made the right call. Interestingly, Couples is beating all of the American President’s Cup team at -4 except for Tiger.
There are two members of the American team who are iffy for next week — Stricker and Mahan. I’d love to see Freddie step in and play if one or the other can’t.
And what a good start for Tiger. Disappointing that he played the back nine in even par today with perfect conditions (and damn I wish I could have watched Bubba birdie the last three holes in strong winds), but it’s hard to complain about having the solo lead.
