Quote:
Originally Posted by lozen
Well time to pipe in as a Tiger Disliker.
His year has to be ruled a success with three wins and were not done yet. Though in Tiger's standards it is a fail with no Majors.
My question to the Tiger Lovers. With his failure to close on the weekend how do you rate his year and chances next year of winning a major.
I have to also give him credit last few months for not being the ultimate prick to the press and in general. |I hope his comment about being to relaxed on Saturday doesnt change the latter
Obviously a successful year. I predicted 3 wins with 1 major at the beginning of the year. Bah at no major, but not a huge deal. I think he will win at least 1 more time this year, either in the playoffs or around the world after the Tour Championship.
Seems to be getting more and more comfortable with his swing. It definitely falls off a bit when in contention at majors, but as he says all the time with swing changes there is a progression.
Range at home->Course at home->Range/Practice rounds on Tour->Tournaments on Tour->
In contention in Tournaments->Majors->Contending for majors
He appears to be on the last step. Just doesn't appear completely comfortable with his game when the majors are up for grabs, despite his game getting around major venues just fine the first couple days. I'm sure he feels it a little bit more, as evidenced by him closing the deal well in normal events but not at the majors. The first one will be the toughest for sure and you could definitely argue that he's probably "trying" to hard much like at the 2006 Masters when he knew it would be his dad's last chance to see him win a major.
There is definitely room for improvement in the short iron department even just by Tour standards, not to mention his standards as someone who used to be one of the best. Putting is coming along though still streaky. If as time goes on and there is little to no improvement in his short iron play, say middle of next year then I think we fans can start to get a bit worried.
Overall tons of positives to take from the year so far. He's well aware of what areas of his game are the weakest and I'm sure he will target them as he feels more and more comfortable with not having to devote all of his practice time to the full swing. Fully expect next year to be better than this year.
And, sure it is the biggest major drought of his career but the numbers lie a little bit there. Yes it has been 14 majors, 4 more than the 2 10 major droughts hes had previously but the circumstances are tad different.
1) Personal life meltdown(big blow to his chances at 2010 Masters)
2) Injuries(didn't play in 2011 USO or Open and basically unprepared for 2011 PGA)
3) After every other swing change Tiger didn't win until his 11th major with that swing.
At best this was his 7th major with the Foley swing and that is counting the 2010 PGA Champ where they started working together the week before. Remove that, now your down to 6 real starts, and you can basically take out the 2011 PGA and now you are looking at 5 "real" major starts under Foley.
Those 5 starts:
T4
T40
T21
T3
T11
Looks pretty good to me. Looks just slightly worse than his finishes leading up to 99 PGA
3
T10
T18
T3
T7
And better than the finishes leading up to the 2005 Masters
T39
T22
T17
T9
T24
HANG IT UP TIGER. YOURE DONE
NOT
NEXT YEAR GONNA BE FUN