Tiger Woods will never regain golf dominance

[jamo]

Originally Posted by huskylawyer

3) Woods is a flawed guy.   Who isn't?   Infidelity among married men is huge, i.e., 50%.  Therefore half (and probably more) of the married guys you see swing the stick during the weekends are also swinging their other stick when their wife isn't around.  That's just a fact. His mistake--he got caught.    Call him an idiot for getting caught, but most guys who cheat on their wives aren't very smart about it.    He's not a "bad guy", because I have plenty of friends who have similar problems (and half the married guys on this board aren't angels in their marriage).  He's a flawed guy.  It doesn't make it right--but just the self righteousness is kinda crazy, considering that cheating on your wife is almost a part of the human condition for most men.

50%?!? That seems way high. If that's a real number (which I suspect it isn't) I've immediately become angry with the rest of my gender (or at least half of it). I'm a Tiger fan, but to suggest him cheating on his wife is anything other than deplorable is IMO dumb. I don't think he's an idiot for getting caught, I think he's an idiot for doing it. It doesn't take a perfect person not to cheat on their significant other.

I do, however, agree with most if not all of the rest of your post.

[Mr. Desmond]

Originally Posted by jamo

50%?!? That seems way high. If that's a real number (which I suspect it isn't) I've immediately become angry with the rest of my gender (or at least half of it). I'm a Tiger fan, but to suggest him cheating on his wife is anything other than deplorable is IMO dumb. I don't think he's an idiot for getting caught, I think he's an idiot for doing it. It doesn't take a perfect person not to cheat on their significant other.

About 50% of marriages end in divorce. Although that stat can be misleading because some of us are divorced 2 or 3 times. The stat may be more like 25% for men who cheat from stats I've seen ... could be higher.

Still, it's a lot. And yes, it's deplorable. It's a more positive tactic to get to counseling if you've got issues. Some of us are apparently not mentally ready for marriage. And I think that most don't know that when they enter marriage. They think they're ready... but no. Tiger wasn't ready and apparently has some mental issues .... and we all have mental issues. The difference is that some are publicized in the paper if you're a celebrity.

[RichF]

Quote:

I have been waiting for someone to show something close to that so i can cheer for that golfer and havent seen it.

Well to be honest McDowell has shown that he is ready to dominate  and he is simply amazing but other then him not muck excitement or birdie putts sank to force a playoff or win a tourny.

I respect greatness

No you don't.

All you've done is show that you're from Massacussetts and you rave on about Graeme McDowell all the time. (ooohh..the penny just dropped for me )

Well, Graeme McDowell and one off-season December tournament, that is.

Dude....get another story, this one is really boring .

[bwdial]

Tiger will never return to his dominant form of the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s.  Mentally, I think he is a far cry from where he was then.  He really reminds me of myself when I was younger - albeit much better at the game of golf - because I used to get so over-frustrated with myself over poor shots.  I was playing a lot, and I felt I should have been much better, but the reality was that I simply wasn't very confident over the ball.  I once caught a shot extremely thin and slammed the sole of my club into the ground, folding the shaft like a flimsy straw.  I scared the hell out of my playing partner and broke a club over a shot that wound up just short of the green, simply because I hadn't 'pured' the shot.  He isn't hitting the ball as well as he used to, and it frustrates him, but he seems to have lost that ability to recover.  Now, he just gets more and more sullen and plays himself out of tournaments.

Is it the swing change?  Perhaps.  I am curious to see how long he's willing to stick it out with Foley.  He isn't one to suffer public embarrassment graciously, and that shot into the water on six at the Accenture was as embarrassing a result as I could have imagined he was capable of having.  That looked like I shot I would have hit.  At some point, I think he'll simply throw Foley under the bus and move on; but to whom?  Harmon and Haney are already under the bus.  And, while his new swing changes are being analyzed to death, the real fissure in the walls of Fort Woods is on the greens.  He's always been a bit wild off the tee, but when have any of us seen him miss some of the putts we've seen him miss recently.  He's missing six footers by six inches... again, resembling some of us with a putter in our hands.  The closest parallel I can draw is a race car driver who has survived a harrowing crash at Indianapolis, and can't seem to muster the nerve to really keep his foot in it all the way through the corners.  He may never get it back.

As to the difference that Tiger has made to the Tour, it is irrefutable, and every journeyman pro should offer to clean the man's clubs for what he has meant to their bottom line.  However, I fear that Tiger Woods has created something akin to the real estate market that paralleled his dominant period; a bubble.  Ten guys have already gone over the million dollar mark, and it's the first week of March.  Sorry folks, but I don't see how that's going to be sustainable on a PGA Tour without Tiger Woods.  In tennis, there are two guys over $1,000,000.  One of them hasn't lost a single match this season while winning both tournaments on the ATP Tour; the other one is the guy he beat in their season's first major.  There were 99 $1,000,000 winners in 2010 on the PGA Tour.  That's mind boggling.  Tiger Woods was the first player to break the $2,000,000 mark in 1997, and last season there were 37 players that did it; and 14 of them did so without winning a tournament! That simply isn't sustainable, and I am afraid that the world of the PGA Tour may suffer the same sort of meltdown if the advertising revenue continues to dry up.  That money's got to come from somewhere, and if there aren't as many advertisers, we may see the Tour go back to the days of actually forcing players to earn their livings.

[franky21]

Originally Posted by bwdial

Tiger will never return to his dominant form of the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s.  Mentally, I think he is a far cry from where he was then.  He really reminds me of myself when I was younger - albeit much better at the game of golf - because I used to get so over-frustrated with myself over poor shots.  I was playing a lot, and I felt I should have been much better, but the reality was that I simply wasn't very confident over the ball.  I once caught a shot extremely thin and slammed the sole of my club into the ground, folding the shaft like a flimsy straw.  I scared the hell out of my playing partner and broke a club over a shot that wound up just short of the green, simply because I hadn't 'pured' the shot.  He isn't hitting the ball as well as he used to, and it frustrates him, but he seems to have lost that ability to recover.  Now, he just gets more and more sullen and plays himself out of tournaments.

Is it the swing change?  Perhaps.  I am curious to see how long he's willing to stick it out with Foley.  He isn't one to suffer public embarrassment graciously, and that shot into the water on six at the Accenture was as embarrassing a result as I could have imagined he was capable of having.  That looked like I shot I would have hit.  At some point, I think he'll simply throw Foley under the bus and move on; but to whom?  Harmon and Haney are already under the bus.  And, while his new swing changes are being analyzed to death, the real fissure in the walls of Fort Woods is on the greens.  He's always been a bit wild off the tee, but when have any of us seen him miss some of the putts we've seen him miss recently.  He's missing six footers by six inches... again, resembling some of us with a putter in our hands.  The closest parallel I can draw is a race car driver who has survived a harrowing crash at Indianapolis, and can't seem to muster the nerve to really keep his foot in it all the way through the corners.  He may never get it back.

As to the difference that Tiger has made to the Tour, it is irrefutable, and every journeyman pro should offer to clean the man's clubs for what he has meant to their bottom line.  However, I fear that Tiger Woods has created something akin to the real estate market that paralleled his dominant period; a bubble.  Ten guys have already gone over the million dollar mark, and it's the first week of March.  Sorry folks, but I don't see how that's going to be sustainable on a PGA Tour without Tiger Woods.  In tennis, there are two guys over $1,000,000.  One of them hasn't lost a single match this season while winning both tournaments on the ATP Tour; the other one is the guy he beat in their season's first major.  There were 99 $1,000,000 winners in 2010 on the PGA Tour.  That's mind boggling.  Tiger Woods was the first player to break the $2,000,000 mark in 1997, and last season there were 37 players that did it; and 14 of them did so without winning a tournament!  That simply isn't sustainable, and I am afraid that the world of the PGA Tour may suffer the same sort of meltdown if the advertising revenue continues to dry up.  That money's got to come from somewhere, and if there aren't as many advertisers, we may see the Tour go back to the days of actually forcing players to earn their livings.

Well we shouldnt be suprised that Tiger is struggling with his new swing like i have said before he has never won a major on the year that he has changed his swing which has been twice. He has just won 1 tourny so he has historically be very average on the year that he was changing things aroung. Tiger will never be as good as he was when he was younger but what people dont understand you dont need to win 5 tournys a year to be number 1 you just have to place well. Westwood if i am not mistaking got 5 top five finishes and that pushed him to 1 and he missed a good chunk of the season with a injury. Kaymer has just won once and now he is number 1. So Tiger needs to play awesome to beat Jacks record but to be number one he just needs to win a couple times of year and he is back or just 1 win and 5 top 10 finishes and he is back on top. I mean it isnt impossible to be one it seemed that way cause Tiger won at a rapid pace so noone could catch him but i think now that he fell out of one we will now see how hard it is to stay at 1 and appreciate how he got there. McDowell is the only guy that can stay there he is simply amazing. There is alot of money in winnings on the tour but honestly these golfers make most of there money on sponsers in one of my golf digests magazine it shows how much money they make. That is a staggering number 37 players broke the 2 mil dollar mark that is crazy compared to when Tiger did it that just shows how much the game has evolved and again makes my point on how Tiger has set the mark. But i think he will be dominet again will he be the old Tiger to be determined but he will definetly win again he is just to talented i dont see someone that works that hard falling of the map.

[Mr. Desmond]

Gosh, and I thought I wrote novels.

Write away, guys.

Tiger's History shows that:

Swing change may not take for a year.

Short game will improve when he allocates more time to it.

It's his pattern, folks.

The sky is not falling.

It is what it is ... he is in training mode.

[max power]

He was stupid for doing it, but to say that it isn't human nature is ignoring science.  Infidelity among men is high, and not that much lower among women.

Originally Posted by jamo

50%?!? That seems way high. If that's a real number (which I suspect it isn't) I've immediately become angry with the rest of my gender (or at least half of it). I'm a Tiger fan, but to suggest him cheating on his wife is anything other than deplorable is IMO dumb. I don't think he's an idiot for getting caught, I think he's an idiot for doing it. It doesn't take a perfect person not to cheat on their significant other.

I do, however, agree with most if not all of the rest of your post.

[alo1984]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

Of course the purses increased during Tiger's era. The top salaries in every sport went up exponentially in the 90s and early part of the 2000s. Entire professional leagues started up and folded trying to cash in on this trend. A lot of money was made and lost and the losing continues. Whether or not Tiger Woods came along, golfers would have made a king's ramsome in the past 12 years. Whether or not Tiger returns to level he was at during the pinnacle of his career, participation in golf has been in a steady decline since 2008. That's the truth. Fewer rounds and less money being invested means fewer courses are being built, country clubs are closing their doors, and memberships are dwindling. When one considers the amount of tillable land that's set aside for fewer and fewer middle and upper class people to chase a little white ball around, it's not hard to  see that golf as we know it is going to end. Probably not in our lifetime, but not too long after that.

Okay, so let's not give Tiger any credit for the huge growth that just happened to take place at the exact time he dominated the sport.  It was bound to happen anyway.  I agree with some of your points, but it seems that your disdain for "fawning" over Tiger is keeping you from acknowledging what is really obvious.  Tiger absolutely deserves credit for the commercial growth that golf has experienced.  No, he isn't the sole reason for it but he has played a substantial role.

Originally Posted by mtsalmela80

I think the United States is going to end far before golf is seriously in danger of ending as a sport

Sheesh.  A bit gloomy don't you think.

[Brunogolf]

In this entire thread not a single mention of Tiger and his affiliation with Dr. Galea.  I know everyone does not want to believe but up here in the great white the rumour mill is not churning it has borne a whole lot more.   Of the Galea client base that compete at an Olympic level testing most sit out 8-10 months but how long was Tiger out 9 weeks I believe.  Its not Foley or anything else Tiger appears to be the Lance Armstrong of golf (although never a positve test).

[RichF]

No sign of anything saying he is going to regain anything soon.

He refuses to change or more alarmingly, add to his playing schedule which at least might get some of the confidence back. If he sticks to his usual schedule he most likely will continue to post his 70-75s, make some cuts, but won't contend. The result is he will continue to slip.

It's almost like he is refusing to admit anything is wrong and refusing to change. So far he isn't overtly blaming others but how soon before that starts: Adios, Foley and possibly Stevie (who continues to look uncomfortable on the bag not knowing whether to compliment him or try to help him with observations). If everyone else is commenting on "what is going on with that swing" you know for sure Stevie is seeing it.

Truthfully, I think we'll find out a lot about the state of his game in the next 5 weeks. He'll be teeing it up in 3 events he's done very well in the past (Bay Hill, Doral & Masters). If he fails to 'contend' in any of those (and by that, I mean win or finish in the Top-5) he could drop out of the Top 10 (of course, depending on how other players fare during the same stretch.)

Aside from his driving, which is getting worse, now his short-game and putting is MIA too.
I find it funny that people keep comparing his current swing to that of 3 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when they really should take a look at his putting stroke. In the last 8 months it's become 'stabby', jerky - not flowing and rhythmical as it once was. Sure, his struggles with the full shots keep putting more pressure on the short game, but I do not think that this is really the cause. At times his putting stroke looks like those of some players on the Champions Tour. Short and with a stabbing motion. He can still make some putts with this, when he really feels good, obviously, but it just breaks down under pressure. Even if he finds some sort of repeatable swing, this will be the real issue.

Plus, factor in the fact that his body isn't what it used to be and he's 35 and the rising talent coming along better than ever...I think we'll see whether Woods sticks to his statement a few years back when he said if he ever got to the poijnt where he wasn't winning/contending...then he'd retire from golf.

Anyways, doesn;'t anyone enjoy watching the new names in golf on both PGA Tour and European Tour? Personally, I've watched more golf these past 12 months than I ever did when Tiger-Mania was going on...

[Mr. Desmond]

Originally Posted by RichF

I find it funny that people keep comparing his current swing to that of 3 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when they really should take a look at his putting stroke. it's become 'stabby', jerky - not flowing and rhythmical as it once was.  Short and with a stabbing motion. He can still make some putts with this, when he really feels good, obviously...

From your post above, I find agreement with the above excerpts. His putting looks as if he needs inspiration from Ben Crenshaw -- loose and flowing. I saw highlights of Rory McIlroy's stroke and Tiger's back to back, a couple of weeks ago ... and thought Wow, Rory stole Tiger's stroke. It's smooth and free flowing. Tiger looks tight all the time and his stroke reflects that tightness ... almost as if it's a tightness from an overall lack of confidence.

[Harmonious]

I've said all along that Tiger's putting has been responsible for more than a few victorys, when his wayward drives forced him to lay up, then chip up and sink a 10 footer to save par.  This was especially true in the majors, when par was a good score. That doesn't seem to be happening these days.  Those 10 footers are sliding by for bogey now.

Whether he will regain his stroke is anybody's guess.  Some guys maintain their putting throughout their career.  Others (Snead, Hogan, Miller, Watson) don't, and never regain the level of play they once had, on a consistent basis.

[bwdial]

Originally Posted by Harmonious

I've said all along that Tiger's putting has been responsible for more than a few victorys, when his wayward drives forced him to lay up, then chip up and sink a 10 footer to save par.  This was especially true in the majors, when par was a good score. That doesn't seem to be happening these days.  Those 10 footers are sliding by for bogey now.

Whether he will regain his stroke is anybody's guess.  Some guys maintain their putting throughout their career.  Others (Snead, Hogan, Miller, Watson) don't, and never regain the level of play they once had, on a consistent basis.

During the Accenture, they mentioned that when he won a few years back - and this is from memory - he holed every putt inside of six feet and that now, he was only holing about half of them.

[jldavis73]

In reference to Tiger:

"All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again."

Might have really helped him to play the Honda.  He needs reps, man!  Driving range success is great, but do it in a tournament when it really matters!

[max power]

Valid point.  I was great at the range last Thursday, Friday, yesterday, and today.  During the 9 holes I played on Monday I sucked.  I love the range but you got to take it out on the course with some frequency or they become 2 entirely different things.

Originally Posted by jldavis73

In reference to Tiger:

"All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again."

Might have really helped him to play the Honda.  He needs reps, man!  Driving range success is great, but do it in a tournament when it really matters!

[sean_miller]

The TV networks made more money for events Tiger entered, and the purses increased. Tiger was everywhere. I can't deny that. At what cost though? When he wasn't in the field rantings were way down. He doesn't compete on the LPGA at all, so that has almost disappeared. There's only so much air time to go around. So yes, Tiger got people excited about Tiger (and Buick and Nike, etc) and not so excited about anyone else. I don't recall playing with anyone who cited Tiger Woods as the reason they took up the game, but I could be wrong and it could be just a regional bias since I don't see much Nike golf equipment around here either.

Quote:

Okay, so let's not give Tiger any credit for the huge growth that just happened to take place at the exact time he dominated the sport.  It was bound to happen anyway.  I agree with some of your points, but it seems that your disdain for "fawning" over Tiger is keeping you from acknowledging what is really obvious.  Tiger absolutely deserves credit for the commercial growth that golf has experienced.  No, he isn't the sole reason for it but he has played a substantial role.

[bwdial]

Originally Posted by franky21

Well we shouldnt be suprised that Tiger is struggling with his new swing like i have said before he has never won a major on the year that he has changed his swing which has been twice. He has just won 1 tourny so he has historically be very average on the year that he was changing things aroung. Tiger will never be as good as he was when he was younger but what people dont understand you dont need to win 5 tournys a year to be number 1 you just have to place well. Westwood if i am not mistaking got 5 top five finishes and that pushed him to 1 and he missed a good chunk of the season with a injury. Kaymer has just won once and now he is number 1. So Tiger needs to play awesome to beat Jacks record but to be number one he just needs to win a couple times of year and he is back or just 1 win and 5 top 10 finishes and he is back on top. I mean it isnt impossible to be one it seemed that way cause Tiger won at a rapid pace so noone could catch him but i think now that he fell out of one we will now see how hard it is to stay at 1 and appreciate how he got there. McDowell is the only guy that can stay there he is simply amazing. There is alot of money in winnings on the tour but honestly these golfers make most of there money on sponsers in one of my golf digests magazine it shows how much money they make. That is a staggering number 37 players broke the 2 mil dollar mark that is crazy compared to when Tiger did it that just shows how much the game has evolved and again makes my point on how Tiger has set the mark. But i think he will be dominet again will he be the old Tiger to be determined but he will definetly win again he is just to talented i dont see someone that works that hard falling of the map.

Again, it has more to do with his putter right now than his long game.  He's missing putts badly.  As has been pointed out, sometimes that goes and you simply can't get it back.

You're kind of making my point for me.  All Tiger needs is a few top five finishes to get back, but that's not exactly dominant.  I just don't see him ever returning to that dominant form that gave him such a lead that it took years for someone to finally catch him and take the number one spot away.

[newtogolf]

Originally Posted by sean_miller

I don't recall playing with anyone who cited Tiger Woods as the reason they took up the game

Quote:

I don't think Tiger is the reason people took up the game, but he was the one that got me to stop flipping the channels past golf and start to watch it.  Eventually led to me learning more about golf, and wanting to play it more seriously.  If someone asked me I wouldn't credit Tiger directly for my involvement in golf now, but indirectly I guess he was the one that got me interested.