I hope Tiger saved some of his billion dollars. It looks more and more like he will not get back.
About the only good thing you can say about that match is that Scott and Choi played so well that it was lucky for the US that they faced our worst team that day. A different matchup, and we would have lost two matches instead of just one.
Oh well, as Tiger said about Stevie, let’s look forward. Should be very interesting to see him paired with DJ.
If Tiger spent every dime he had today, he would still be richer than you and me combined by tomorrow. God only knows how much Abu Dhabi just offered him to make him skip Torrey Pines next year.
And you can’t judge the state of his game by one off round, especially on that course. He struck his ball fairly well, except for, as usual, his driver. But RM is like Augusta — a ball that lands a yard off the perfect spot can end up 50 feet away from the hole.
He has a very bad track record since he came back. Lots of bad starts and missed cuts. He has had a couple decent starts and blowups at the end. He has shown little reason to think he can come back.
Another loss for Tiger today. he played better today, but hard to make any concrete judgment with the conditions.
Only US player with two losses.
Early start tomorrow afternoon with two sessions. Could Tiger possibly get benched in one of the sessions? 2 players sit out each session.
Painful to watch yesterday. Good ball striking and good putts, but nothing went in. If he’d putted like the old Tiger, he would have shot about a 61.
Tiger and Stricker playing the last two singles matches. Given the US lead, they probably won’t matter.
Tiger had a nice win today, which happened to clinch the Cup.
The difference in the President’s Cup was Couples selecting Tiger vs. Norman selecting Allenby. Stricker was awful in the first foresomes match - it wasn’t Tigers fault they lost so badly.
He is totally back, his shots are crisp and clean, and his putting was extremely good. His length was perfect and his line was just off on some of the nastiest greens on the planet.
He’ll win at least three tourneys next year, and at least one of them will be a major. Just put him back on some familiar greens.
"it wasn’t Tigers fault they lost so badly. "
Stricker/Woods were 3 over in that match, no birdies.
They made three bogeys on #5, #7, #9.
Tiger hit the tee shot on #5 into a green side bunker, dead. They were conceded a 10 ft bogey putt when Scott/Choi made par
Tiger hit the tee shot on #7 into a bush, unplayable lie. They were conceded a 10 ft bogey putt when Scott/Choi made par.
Stricker hit a poor approach shot into a bunker and they made a legitimate bunker.
They would have lost to any other team out there that day. It was a team effort that they lost and IMO, Tiger hit the worst of the bad and indifferent shots.
Tiger was 2-3 this week, and people are claiming he his back. he beat the #47 player in the world who went 1-3-1 this weekend. Aaron Baddley is not a world beater.
I didn’t check all the scorecards, but I think he would have won no matter whom he played today.
But it’s true that it’s way too early to say he’s back. People forget that he played even better at the Ryder Cup last year, in both the team and singles events. And he played well at the Chevron last year, too. And he finished 4th at the Masters. I thought he was back when he did that. Then his game turned to shit.
The difference is that now, he’s healthy, and he seems to be assimilating his new swing. If he can play four days in a row like he played today, he’ll beat anybody who isn’t having a career week. But if he slips some 75’s in there, like he did last week, then he’ll still be a top player, but he won’t win very often.
This fall is mirroring nearly exactly what happened last year. Lets review:
Ryder Cup 3-1-0, record, on a losing team, getting skunked in his one loss
China t6th place
JBWere Australia 4th against a 4th tier field
Chevron 2nd place (where he choked a big lead going into final round)
Looks pretty similar to this year doesn’t it
Everybody expectations were high, particularly after opening with 69-69 at Torrey Pines.
He Finished 74-75 (or 75-74) and finished well back, T40 something. On Sunday, he played with a rookie who opined that Tiger “mailed it in”.
Dubai, on the fringe of contention, laid the sod over a wedge shot on the 72nd and finished T20.
Matchplay, on the 19th hole, couldn’t find the planet on his shot in his first round match.
Those Presidents Cup greens are not the place to find your putting touch.
Tiger won the Presidents Cup today. Furyk was a helper though.
pure hyperbole.
Tiger happen to win the clinching point and won 2 points total out of the 18 needed and the 19 total points the US team won.
The team won the Presidents Cup.
That was the headline on ESPN site earlier. How could it be wrong?
As I said, his results last fall were better than this year. The T6 at the HSBC alone was better than anything he’s done since this year’s Masters.
His driving is still a crap shoot, and he’s only had one really good day of putting. IMO the most encouraging thing about the last two weeks is his short game, especially the bunker play, which just sucked most of the year.
But the experts say his swing is a lot better now. He’s even won over Miller and Chamblee.
It’s unrealistic to expect him to ever get back to his best, which IMO was the best ever. But he doesn’t have to do that.
He had a peak that was ten years long, from May 1999 to June 2008, during which he won 13 majors, 15 WGCs, 57 PGA events, six Euro Tour events, and two Japan tour events. Nobody will ever do that again.
But if he does “only” half that well in the next ten years, i.e. 3 PGA wins a year, and a major every other year, he will end up with over 100 wins and 19 majors, which isn’t bad.
Of course, I have no objections to him getting all the way back, and winning five majors in a year and a half.
I hope he plays in every damn tournament he can find. He needs the work.
Correct. Tiger had a losing record this week, and if he hadn’t, the US would have clinched the cup before he beat Baddeley on Sunday. He shouldn’t have said anything about his match clinching it.
On the other hand, it was IMO a fairly muted response to incredibly crass provocation from Greg Norman. What kind of a moron says that one of the other teams player’s shouldn’t have been picked? And as if repeating it for weeks before the match wasn’t enough, he even repeated it after his team lost!
One of Norman’s captain’s picks was the only guy to go 0-4 this century, and lost 7 and 5 in singles. And this idiot thinks he should have had MORE picks???
People talk about Tiger holding a grudge, but Norman is clearly not over Tiger displacing him as the perennial #1 in the world.
So, a few months into the New Year… how’s Tiger doing now? Will he ever be on the top of the golfing heap again?
Last seen, he was being tracked by Snoopy II blimp in a black Mercedes on the freeways of Miami after limping off the golf course and saying “No Mas” in final round of a one of the bigger tournaments of the year (non-Major).
Just as the TW faithful was working themselves into a lather in anticipation of a return to championship form, he re-injures his Achilles. 8 days he shot a fantastic final found but still came up 2 shots shy of the best golfer in the game, Rory McIlroy.
IMO, he is “just another (professional) golfer” these days. There is nothing special about his game anymore. There are dozens of golfer who can hit it and putt just as well as he can. He still moves the needle, much like Charlie Sheen moved needle in Hollywood a year ago.
His greatest asset, Mental Fortitude, was lost when he hit a fire hydrant on Thanksgiving weekend 2009.
He was not won on the PGAT in 30 months, since September 2009. He did win an exhibition late last year that had some highly ranked players but it was only 18 players.