The Australian Open has 15 players that actually have a resume and 130 from the Hooters Tour.
96 players are ranked outside the top 1000 in the ranking
Another 26 players are ranked from 500-1000.
This is like the Chevron Tournament that filled out the tournament from the mini-tours.
It is fair enough to criticise the strength of the field, but if Tiger wants to get his form back then it is probably sensible to get used to leading again. This is probably a good tournament in that respect.
It doesn’t give us a good feel for where his game is at the moment though but I’m sure he’s realised that it’ll be a long climb back for him.
Tiger needs to play as many events as possible. Because he is Tiger, any win will be noticed. If he comes up with a few in a row, he can get back some of his mojo and some of the fear he generated in other pros. He is finally doing the right thing. He thought he could take a lot of time off and go back in and win in majors. Not true.
True, but the US Open isn’t being played this week, so what do you want him to do?
Well the Barclays Singapore Open on the EuroTour has a better field than Australian Open. with 26 players in the top 100 and 60 players in the top 200.
If he does win this week, it is definitely a step in the right direction. But it is not a PGATour type quality field. OWGR will rate it highly because they only care about the top players and it does have 9 of the top 22 players but it is slim pickings after that.
There will be a lot of over-the-top fawning that he is back, ready to win 8 or 9 times and 2 majors. I just want point that he is beating about 15 world class golfers, and a boatload of others that are just filling out the field.
Better, but not great. At any rate, he committed to this tournament several months ago.
We agree that a win here will be a step in the right direction. Actually, his play so far has already been a step in the right direction. He seems to be getting his short game and his stinger back. IMO those are the second and third most important parts of his A game, the first, of course, being putting.
You asked what else I wanted him to do. This was a stronger option, and probably more ranking points (depending on the Home Tour calculation).
of course Barclays probably would not write a check for $3 million dollars to show up.
Fair enough.
BTW, what do you think of Phil only getting 72% of the votes for the Hall of Fame? You might have noticed I’m a Tiger fan, but how in the world can anyone who plays or reports on golf for a living not acknowledge what Phil has done in the last 20 years? If 40 wins and four majors isn’t enough to make the HOF on the first ballot, what is?
If I were a voter, I don’t think I’d vote for him either. Not because he’s undeserving, but because he’s still a very competitive golfer. Hall of Fame honors shouldn’t be given out until someone retires (at least from the regular tour.)
I tend to agree that a full-time major (not senior) tour pro should not be eligible for the HOF. Given the nature of golf, you can’t wait until they stop playing completely, but I’d say if they go five consecutive years without playing at least 10 events in any of those years, then you can say they’re no longer full time.
And that’s the way I would vote if that question were on the ballot. But that wasn’t the question.
The question was, does Phil deserve to be in the HOF? And voting no, because you don’t happen to agree with some rule that has nothing to do with that question, is IMO an insult to Phil. Given some of the very marginal players already in the HOF, a guy with his record should get in by a vote of 100%.
I heard 78% of the ballot. And I don’t know if the 22% included the ballots that were not returned. I can see 15-20% of the voters not returning a ballot.
IMO, I probably would not have voted for PM either. I think first ballot Hall of Famers are for the truly exceptional golfers, players like Woods, Nicklaus, Sorenstam, Wright. the once in a lifetime athletes. I think there should be a special wing in the Hall of Fame for the best of the best. And PM is not there (yet?).
It doesn’t work that way in golf, but that is my criteria.
***I also happen to think that ‘Hefty’ is done. I have heard rumors that his arthritis is worse than he is letting on. It will be interesting if he plays 36 holes on the 2 session day in the Pres. Cup next week.
Mahan pulled out of the tourney in Australia with an injury and Stricker is still apparently not fully committed to the Prez Cup.
BTW, There are Emirates Flight Attendants standing at most of the tees. They look so strange to me, almost like mannequins.
Phil is one of the greatest. There is no way anyone can say he is not a HOFer.
Tiger bogeyed the first three holes then birdied the fourth. Some of these greens are like bowling alleys. Tiger’s second shot on 2 looked perfect but when it hit the green 20 feet in front of the hole, it bounced WAY over the flag and ended up a good 30 yards past the pin.
75 for Tiger today. It’s all part of his strategy. He knows that the wind will steadily increase tomorrow, so late starters will be at a disadvantage.
Tiger played the front nine in -3 today. The back nine has three par 5’s and a driveable par 4. I’m guessing he goes for it (he’s three back of Chalmers.) Could post a low number and shake up the field behind him.
The bogey on 11 killed him. I don’t know how many times he has to bogey a par-5 to get the idea that until he can hit the fairway more than one time in five with his driver, he should just leave it in the bag.
If he doesn’t get his short game back, he won’t win anyway. If he does, then he’ll birdie par-5’s half the time, and take bogey out of the picture, driving with a 3-metal or iron. That’s better than making bogey half the time with the driver, even if he does make an occasional eagle.
Everything you say makes sense. Tiger’s problem is, he thinks he’s Tiger Woods! And he’s not. Not any more.
There’s no reason he can’t be competitive for years to come, and no reason he can’t still be a damn good golfer. But he has a terrible obstacle to overcome: he USED to be able to make spectacular shots that no one else could have made. He’s DONE it so often that it’s going to be VERY hard to convince him he can’t make the now.
It looks like Tiger can compete if he doesn’t have to hit driver.
Two of the par 5’s at the Aussie Open can be hit with long iron off the tee and and another long iron second shot. I am not sure of any par 5’s on the PGATour similarly designed, certainly not the tournaments that Tiger plays.
the course was only about 6900 yds which is short by PGAT standards and hitting irons off the tee was the general play from the pros
And Tiger apparently is able to hit long iron fairly well.
The T-shot on 11 was wildly left. the Tee-shot on 13 was wildly right. He did hit two good drivers on #3, 8 (I think they were drivers).
this week is the Presidents Cup. the course is on what is known as the Sand Belt, so chances are it will be hard and fast track. That should bode well for long irons, unless the course is full of 490 par 4’s.
Presidents Cup and Tiger and Stricker got creamed. They lost 7-6 and did not win a hole, did not have one bird. They lost 2 holes with bogies. Yet the US won 4-2 first day.
They lost the last two holes with pars.
They were actually 3 over par. They bogeyed Holes #5, #7, #9 . Actually the bogeys on #5, #7 were conceded 8-10 ft putts after Choi/Scott made par.
It is difficult to analyze anything from alternate shot, but neither Stricker or Woods hit any good shots but the 2 shots that led to conceded bogeys were hit by Woods, and Stricker hit a bad iron shot on 9 that led to the ‘true’ bogey.
They didn’t make any putts after indifferent iron shots.
Disclaimer, Stricker hit a good iron shot on hole #2 that hit the flagstick and spun away from the hole. It ended up 20 ft away when it probably would have been 4or 5 feet away.