warbirdjms

Wether it is the Yips or as Tigers says 'trouble finding the bottom of his swing', all who have witnessed his recent struggles can say for a fact that he cannot compete until the issue is resolved. Each of us have an opinion which makes this site so interesting to follow, this is my take: After hitting a few indifferent chips/pitches in competetive play(when it matters!), could be poor technique, a bad lie or just the fact that your human! When you find yourself in the same situation again the subconscious mind automatically brings the picture/feeling of previous bad results into your conscious mind, leading to a thought process along the lines of 'oh no,last time I faced this kind of shot I made a right mess of it, make sure you don't do the same thing this time.OK, keep weight left, hinge wrists and hold firm, accelerate through impact' It could be a number of swing thoughts running through your mind but it is my belief that if the image or feeling in your mind is of the end result, and BAD result at that, this is what causes the poor shot. The very thing that you don't want to happen does, it is the fear of missing the shot that causes the miss. I am no Tiger but I did achieve a reasonable standard of play and in fact did qualify to play on the European Tour (many,many years ago) all the while struggling with the short game, if I missed a green it was a dropped shot or two! I decided to grind it out of the dirt and set a goal of 5,000 practice pitch/ chips shots a day and followed this regime for exactly 4 weeks, each practice session started poorly but after approx 1 hour I would be hitting my target from any distance 1 shot out of 10 and the rest would be very good. The very first competive round I played after my 4 week grind, I missed the first green by 10 feet, my chip didn't even make the green,double bogey! That was the last round I played with a card in my hand, for me and I fear for Tiger no amount of physical practice will cure this, the only 'cure' is to hit successful shots in actual competitive play. How do you achieve this, if I knew that I would now be playing on the senior tour:-) My research into this malady makes me believe/know it is a mind issue and I have achieved some reasonable success in practice play( not competitive though!) using clear keys, not looking at the ball but off to the side,closing my eyes! Each of these radical methods I believe, take your mind of worrying about the result and letting your natural ability hit the shot, a NON conscious method. it is my opinion Tiger knows how to hit these shots, he's hit some of the greatest short shots in the history of golf( he should get someone to make a DVD of all his great shots and he should just watch them for a week or two, better than any practice), but his mind is now concentrated upon not hitting a bad pitch and this creates enough tension to ruin the shot.If you watch his chip on the first hole from just off the green in the Farmers in slow mo you can just make out his head moving as he looks to see the finish of the shot(anxious) causing the thin. It's also my belief this poor thinking has permeated Tigers long game, how else would he be striping it in practice but then play so poorly in competition. Tiger please,please seek the help of someone like Bob Rotella, it's not caused by a weak mind just a mind working incorrectly.

Here's hoping it's just a blip this week and he gets all parts of his game firing on all cylinders, although I am a massive Nicklaus fan I would love to see Tiger win another few Majors, roll on 2015.

For the 3rd day running Tiger is duffing his chips from just off the green, as someone who has struggled with short game issues over the years I am concerned for Tiger as I believe this problem is not technical and is more a mental issue, especially if the problem persists as it seems to be doing in this tournament for Tiger. He says it is all part of the process when changing your swing as he is doing with his new coach to experience a few problems but I fear there may be more to his short game problems than he is saying. Tiger is always extremely positive and he would never admit that he experienced any negative thoughts over the ball, I hope I am wrong in my assessment but only he really knows what is going through his mind as he approaches these short shots, I do know from painfull personal experience that the longer the problem persists the more difficult it is to overcome.I was really looking forward to watching how Tiger performs this week and to me he seems to be swinging really well and in my opinion his swing seems to be smoother and flowing much better than when he first starting working with Sean Foley but to compete at Tigers level his whole game has to be tip top. I hope for Tigers sake this week is just an anomaly , time will tell.