He’s a Tiger now in need of re-discovering his bite.
Given where Tiger Woods has come from in the past six months, of course, it’s simply incredible that he’s gone from starting all over again to challenging to win PGA events the past two weeks. The challenge we all have is comparing him now to when he was the most dominant player in golf, and it’s hard not to do that no matter how hard we try.
So, with Woods sitting one back of the lead standing on the 16th tee at Bay Hill on Sunday, we expected what we would have expected six or seven years ago. It’s the easiest hole on Arnold Palmer’s favourite golf course, a very reachable par-5 hole.
We expected a big blast and a charge worthy of Palmer, worthy of the old Tiger.
Instead, the 42-year-old Woods, he of the four back fusion surgeries, pulled out his driver and yanked the ball so far to the left it actually flew over the out-of-bounds fence on the Orlando course. He was so far off target they were yelling fore at Disney World.
That meant three off the tee. That meant tournament over or, at least, the end of his chance to win the Bay Hill event for a ninth time.
That honour instead went to Rory McIlroy, the long hitter who somehow didn’t win a single event in 2017. McIlroy had a spectacular finish, going 8 under par on the final 13 holes to shoot 64 and outdistance inventive youngster Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Rose and Swedish veteran Henrik Stenson.
“It’s fine lines out here. Not as black-and-white as some people make it out to be,” said McIlroy. “But I was overcomplicating things … maybe getting bogged down by technical things. The objective is to get that ball in the hole, and that’s it. It doesn’t matter how you do it.”
Woods started the day five back of Stenson — the 54-hole leader — and ended up eight shots behind McIlroy, tied for fifth. It was a disappointing finish. But on the other hand, it was also Woods’ 10th straight round of par or better, his best such streak in six years.
So he’s definitely in the conversation now.
“Every area looks pretty good right now for Tiger,” said golf analyst Johnny Miller. “He definitely is closing in on some victories.”
It was the golf world’s last look at Woods before the Masters next month, and his second straight week of competition. He finished second at the Valspar Championship a week earlier, a tournament at which he stood one shot back of the lead on the 18th hole after making a sensational 44-foot putt on the 17th. So depending on how you look at things, being one back at Bay Hill with three holes to play was an improvement although, with McIlroy’s finish, Woods would not have been able to catch the Northern Irishman anyway.
“I knew I had to keep making birdies,” said Woods, who was followed by the biggest galleries this tournament had seen in years.
The big mistake on No. 16 killed him, and he was at a bit of a loss afterwards to explain how he could make such a large error on such a straightforward hole. He could hit a stinger with his driving iron, launch a predictable three-wood or try to squeeze a driver down the left side. He went with the last choice, and it backfired when he came over the top too much.
“It’s not that hard a hole,” he said. “I was caught. I didn’t decide what to do. I didn’t commit to it. I bailed out and hit a bad shot. That’s on me for not committing.”
That sounded like just a bad decision on the 70th hole played over four days. And it makes sense that after so long away from competition, Woods might not be as sharp mentally with his decision-making process at crunch time as he needs to be. Yet.
The other issue may be that wayward driver, which gives him plenty of distance at times, but simply isn’t staying in play or on the fairway nearly as much as he needs it to. Just like at Valspar, there were plenty of driving irons off the tee again at Bay Hill. McIlroy, meanwhile, was assaulting the course with his driver, and it’s an open question whether Tiger can even think about winning at Augusta if he can’t trust his driver off the tee.
If there was an improvement in Woods’ game, it was in his ability to start sticking some irons in tight for shorter putts. On the par-5 sixth hole, he slammed a driver 318 yards, then hit a spectacular six-iron from 223 yards out to 13 feet. He just missed the eagle putt, settling for a birdie.
“He’s talked about trying to trust his hands a bit more to create the shots he is envisioning,” said Scott Cowx, head teaching pro at Hamilton Golf and Country Club and technical coach of Canadian PGA player MacKenzie Hughes. “This seems to me to be more reminiscent of the way he played in the early 2000s when he dominated. I’m extremely impressed with his consistent high level of performance the past few weeks.”
On the eighth hole, from 173 yards, Woods hit a six-iron to eight feet for a birdie. Then on the par-4 13th, he made another birdie off a solid iron approach shot to get to 12 under par, just one shot off the lead.
“Here it comes!” enthused TV analyst David Feherty.
But that was it. The disastrous drive on No. 16 killed his chances, although it’s worth noting that, hitting three off the tee, he crushed a driver that actually hit the ball of his playing partner Bud Cauley on the fairway.
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None of Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth or Jon Rahm were part of the Bay Hill event. They’ll all be there at Augusta, the first time Woods will have faced that type of field in this comeback.
McIlroy, after his brilliant performance this weekend, will now be a favourite. He’s been searching for the right combination of everything, and even at Bay Hill changed the shaft on his driver and went with four wedges instead of three.
“I kept saying I didn’t need a win going into Augusta,” he said. “I just needed signs of good golf. Today I was lucky enough to get both.”
Woods, meanwhile, hasn’t won a tournament since August 2013, and hasn’t played the Masters since 2015 when he finished 17th. He has played that particular major 20 times, 18 times as a pro, and won his first of 14 major championships at Augusta as a 21-year-old in 1997.
“He’ll need to hit driver to be in contention at the Masters as Augusta National has far more forgiving fairway widths and very little rough compared to Bay Hill,” said Cowx. “That rewards the bombers with shorter clubs hitting into treacherous pin positions.”
We know the TV numbers are up because of Tiger, and we know the crowds are up at any event he enters. We also know for certain he’s capable of top-10 finishes at tour events.
This comeback has been a major success already, but two big questions remain. Can Woods find a finishing kick to win? And, can he win another major?
Augusta National will give us our next set of answers.
