Tiger is Back, or Is He?

Tiger's Back

Our first and possibly last golf discussion will be about the most dominant golfer in the last 20 years. Tiger Woods has won for the first time since his humiliating personal issues were shown to the whole world. Pundits, sports writers and many non golfers have proclaimed after his victory, "He’s Back!" Is he back to the Tiger Woods circa 2000, 2004-2007? No, and that player will likely never return. And surprisingly, this victory for him a couple weeks ago means less than the average sports fan realizes.

For decades, tournaments conducted after the end of the PGA Tour regular season have been referred to as “Silly Season” events: events that are not at all taken seriously by the professionals that play in them. Why do professionals not care in these events? Why are they viewed like a non-contact football practice and vacation? Why should Tiger receive less credit?

They are called Silly Season events for many reasons. The Silly Season consists of events that have some combination of the following characteristics: limited/zero effect on PGA tour status, limited fields, focus on charitable contributions, and huge paydays. Also, most if not all Silly Season events are in beautiful locations that these pros want to vacation to with their families. For example, the Grand Slam of Golf is held in Hawaii, Shark Shootout is held in Miami or Naples, Wendy’s 3-Tour challenge is held in Las Vegas.

So how does the Chevron World Challenge fit into the generally accepted definition of a Silly Season event?  

1.       It has zero effect on the PGA/European tour status as it is not a regular season event.

2.       It has an extremely limited field, just 18 players, just one player ranked in the top 7 of the OWGR.

3.       It has an asinine purse with over $5 million in prize money, nearly the same amount for a regular tour event, but with 88% less players. Every player receives a paycheck regardless of how badly they play, not true for PGA tour events.

4.       The tournament raises money for Tiger Woods’ Charitable foundation.

5.       The Chevron is held in Thousand Oaks, California, a beautiful city north of Los Angeles.

By any definition it is a Silly Season event.

Another crucial factor of why players didn’t focus on winning and just maintaining their swings was the weather. Weather played a major role in how players treated this event. It was quite windy this year, and scores reflected that being quite higher than in years past. For the non-golfers reading, wind is a swing killer. It kills rhythm, so much so arguably the most talented golfer in the world said earlier this year that he prefers not to play in windy tournaments because it hurts his game dramatically and it takes weeks to recover. This player simply voiced what every professional thinks about the wind. Knowing players thoughts, it was extremely likely these guys were just trying to maintain their rhythm in windy circumstances that were affecting them all week.

But describing this to the average sports fan, they still don’t really understand the time of the year. Even the casual golfer gives too much weight to these events and most people will say that it is still a big event because Player X, Player Y, Player Z was still playing. But were they really playing like it was a real tournament? The best way to make people understand how irrelevant this tournament was to everyone is to think of the Pro Bowl. These events are like the Pro Bowl as they are exclusively for golfers that have had a successful year. Only thing is Tiger has not been close to successful and is quite desperate for a positive story and a victory. Just remember that this a golfer who has been mostly terrible for 2 years, completely disgraced, his aura of invincibility gone, and then realize why that golfer will treat even the Silly Season events like a major tournament.

The force is strong in this one, or he has a temper.

So Tiger did win, but he won against a weak field, against players with little enthusiasm that were guaranteed a payday, while on vacation. He isn’t back, however he reminded the sporting world he is still capable of winning, and very much interested in doing so. I don’t believe he will ever be back to the Tiger of the early to mid-aughts, but he has all of the shots to win any given week.

For the non-golf fans that tune in for the majors or only when Woods is in the hunt, there are things you should look for in his game. Woods has big question marks that remain around his game, and going forward we should monitor several areas of his game which have been concerning even before his scandal broke out.

1.   Will he swing smoother and not continue to destroy his knee? This is the biggest question mark when considering his future. If he continues to run 5 miles a day on his bad knee, he might not play another 5 years. 
2.  In the past several years, his putter has failed him in the final rounds of major tournaments.
3. His short game has been declining for over 2 years now.
4.  His acumen for greens-in-regulation has dropped off. He needs to average 66% GIR’s.
5.  In 2011, Tim Tebow completes more passes on a percentage basis than Tiger hits fairways. Can’t win events when you are in the woods. Need to hit more than 50% of the fairways to win major tournaments, and for Woods the minimum expectation should be 55%.

Author’s note: Golf will not be a regular feature on this blog, however when significant events occur we will provide our viewpoints. I envision for the foreseeable future that we will stick with the big three sports for both professionals and collegiate athletics.