Yeah - I’m sure Tiger is the first golfer ever to blame a missed shot on course conditions, acts of God, or other factors instead of just simply admitting he screwed up!
Waiting for the first folk to say, “Yeah, but this was a matchplay event. Tiger’s streak of strokeplay, PGA tour wins continues …”
I read once that one way to “toughen” scoring is to slow down the greens. Sounded sort of counter-intuitive, as most amatures have trouble with faster greens. But the longer the grass, the more inherent - uh - flaws such that a percentage of perfectly stroked putts will miss. They had a machine making identical strokes, and a greater percentage of putts would miss the longer/slower the greens.
Having said that, Tiger is a phenomenal short putter. I remember one year reading he only missed one or none of the several hundred putts he had within 3 or 4 feet or so. Contrast that with Lefty, who missed 2 short putts on each of the back nine during the final 2 rounds last week.