One of the game's most natural players has been obsessing about his swing with instructor Butch Harmon since the spring of 2007. Mickelson, 40, says he is now past the point of making mechanical changes and is focused on shaping shots and playing by feel. The ease and clarity with which he competed at Torrey was in stark contrast to the plight of Woods, who began the third swing overhaul of his career last summer.
First, Dave Pelz gets put on waivers and now maybe Butch?
That didn't take long! One bad tournament and he's done!
Joe Posnanski on his Curiously Long Posts blog for SI pens a heartfelt, reasoned critique of Tiger from outside the ropes. The essence: are we in denial about the future of his game? It's a great read even if I think he's a bit premature. Though as he points out, when do we come to grips that things will never be the same?
But I think he is going to enter a new phase, where he will contend occasionally, like other golfers. He is going to enter a phase where it will be difficult to play well for four rounds. He is going to enter a phase where those 10-foot putts that were automatic will not be automatic anymore. I think things have changed for Tiger Woods, and they’re not going back. You can’t ever go back. And I don’t know how he is going to handle that. Nobody knows how he will handle it. Over the weekend, on one of his favorite courses, he looked lost. His swing was off. His short game was off. His putting was off. Yes, it was just his first tournament, but Tiger has always done really well in his first tournament — this was part of his game, he was always more ready to go when the seasons began than anyone else.
Anyway, what was as striking as anything was how uninterested he looked.
Elling: Blunt assessment time: I saw a guy who still can't string together four good rounds. He barely pieced together two good nines. Right now, Tiger Woods isn't one of the world's 40 best players. Last night in the San Diego airport, a bunch of scribes were actually discussing what would happen if he never made it back to anything close to his former levels at all. All of a sudden, it didn't sound like heresy.
Huggan: I'm perplexed. Tiger is supposed to have been (working) away since we last saw him at the Chevron and this is what he comes up with? He looked like Justin Leonard's idiot cousin. Can't drive. Can't chip. Can't putt. And let's not even get into his bunker play. Was he digging for buried treasure?
Elling: On Sunday, while he was carding his second-worst score on a course where he has won six of his last seven starts, I was trying to catalog his strengths during the week. Only thing he did above average was hit a few good long irons.
Huggan: Emphasis on a few. Most of the shots I saw were missing California, nevermind Torrey Pines.
It will be interesting to see if Woods, in his work with Foley, can really recover the swing of his own youth. Do yourself a favor and pull up some old footage of Woods, back when he was a collegiate player and U.S. Amateur champion. It’s a joy to watch. That kid, all elbows and knees, thwacked at the ball with such unconscious, unthinking pleasure. Now pull up modern footage, and you’ll be struck by the difference, how much stiffer he seems, how much he’s fighting his own body.
At this point, Woods’ swing looks over-taught, and over-thought. Through the years, Woods has gotten steadily more mechanical, as well as visibly stronger and more muscular. Woods’ perfectionism has been his greatest strength, but you have to wonder if all that seeking of improvement, his constant preoccupation with the technical, always serves him so well. Maybe the greatest player in the world overperfected his swing. It would be nice to see a more natural Woods.
I've heard from a few PGA Tour types smarting after the 54% ratings increase at Torrey Pines joined the up ratings for the Hawaii events. The takeaway seems to be that all is just fine and the PGA Tour is about to lure in the same deal it secured last time, if not an even bigger financial haul. Even though you don't depend on ratings.
Before you read this release from CBS, take 32 minutes and visualize the end of a blowout game between Duke and St. Johns, then proceed.
RATINGS RISE FOR CBS SPORTS’ COVERAGE OF PGA TOUR’S “FARMERS INSURANCE OPEN” FINAL ROUND WITH 54% INCREASE
CBS Sports’ final-round coverage of the PGA TOUR’s FARMERS INSURANCE OPEN on Sunday, January 30 (3:30-6:30 PM, ET), which saw Bubba Watson beat Phil Mickelson by one stroke and Jhonattan Vegas and Dustin Johnson by three strokes, scored an average overnight household rating/share..
Wednesday night marks the return of Blue Bloods! See Tom Selleck play the first openly blue collar member of the USGA Executive Committee battling a super-secret group of Walter Driver lackeys disputing the importance of returning to the New York market every seven years. That's 9:30 Wednesday, only on CBS.
of 3.7/7, up +54% from last year’s 2.4/5 in the metered markets.
Sunday’s final-round rating peaked at a 4.8/9 (6:00-6:30 PM, ET). In addition,
Tonight on 60 Minutes, Julian Assange reveals whether WikiLeaks really has all PGA Tour Vice Presidential emails from the last 13 years and whether he will post them online. Steve Kroft reports, only on CBS.
Sunday’s 3.7/7 was the highest overnight rating for the final round of the FARMERS INSURANCE OPEN since 2008 (4.6/9).
CBS Sports' third-round coverage of the FARMERS INSURANCE OPEN on Saturday, January 29 (3:15-6:00 PM, ET) earned an average overnight household rating/share of 2.5/6, up +47% from last year's third round 1.7/4 in the metered markets. Saturday’s 2.5/6 was the highest-rated third round for this event since 2008 (3.2/7).
"It means a lot," Watson said of the victory. "You know, everyone is special. We do not know if we are going to have them or not. So I'm probably going to cry all day, just like I did last time."
The long-hitting left-hander was 13 under on the par-5s for the week, birdieing all four on Sunday. He led the field in greens in regulation -- 59 of 72. He also led the field in driving distance, averaging 308 yards.
Watson's wife, Angie, saw a calmness in her husband on Sunday that was different than the way he handled himself at TPC River Highlands in June. At the same time, though, his success in San Diego probably could be directly traced to the trust he gained in his abilities as he beat Scott Verplank and Corey Pavin in that playoff.
"We had a lot on our plate at that point in the season," Angie said as she thought back to the win in Hartford. "He just had that kind of go-for-it feeling today. That it didn't matter to him what happened. He was going to go down fighting. So I think there was a look of extra confidence."
In 2011, such a move has the potential for coming off poorly, although there was most definitely a method to the madness Sunday at Torrey Pines.
A few minutes later -- after Mickelson's approach landed behind the pin, spun back toward the cup but came up short of dropping for the eagle he needed to tie Bubba Watson and send the Farmers Insurance Open to a playoff -- Mackay said to suggest theatrics is to not understand the game.
"Pleeeeassse. ... I take offense at that word," Mickelson's longtime caddie said, smirking. "If you knew how many times in a year inside 100 yards he hits the flag, you'd understand ... that was a no brainer.
"We'd be feeling pretty disgusted right now if it hit the flag and went back in the soup."
“About 10, 12, 14 times a year I end up hitting the pin with a wedge and it ricochets all over the place, and I didn’t want that to happen,” Mickelson said. “I wanted to fly it in, possibly, or I wanted to skip it past and maybe bring it back in.”
Mickelson’s tee shot into the rough on 18 prevented him from going for the green in two. He played well this week despite a wayward driver, but it finally cost him on the final hole. Mickelson ranked 64th (out of the 79 players who made the cut) in driving accuracy, but tied for second in greens in regulation.
You are not going to hear it from him, or anybody else in the Mickelson camp, but there was a lot more going on in terms of drama last year than anybody wants to address publicly.
"He is so resilient," Amy Mickelson said this weekend of her famous husband. "He is such a glass-is-half-full guy. He always has been."
With his wife and mom already battling breast cancer, Lefty pretty much got his glass kicked, though despite repeated arm twisting, he politely declined to discuss it on the record.
His bout with arthritis he experienced last summer, which he predictably shrugged off with nary a complaint, was far more difficult than he let on. Mickelson said he wouldn’t discuss his medical issues because it would sound like he was making excuses for a sub-standard second half.
Should be a dandy at Torrey Pines. Rainy here in LA (got to unpack my umbrella!) but looks like it's okay in San Diego in the early Golf Channel coverage. Anyone up for counting the number of times CBS shows Tiger even though he's not in contention?
Even so, he looked more like the Woods who ended last year with a playoff loss at the Chevron World Challenge, not the guy who played so poorly for so much of the year that he didn't win on the PGA Tour for the first time in his career.
It felt like a typical season-opener for Woods, including his position on the leaderboard. In his last four trips to this PGA Tour event, he has trailed by seven, six, five and two shots after the opening round and went on to win them all.
1.) Woods hit just 5 of 14 fairways on Thursday. Obviously, not a good performance off the tee. However, there’s a couple reasons that number is not as bad as it first seems.
The fairways on the North course are extremely narrow. We’re talking U.S. Open width. Also, Woods wasn’t hesitant to use driver on the narrow fairways. He pulled it out on Nos. 15 and 16 consecutive par-4s under 400 yards. He also nearly drove the par-4 second hole. His ball ended up in the rough, but it was in a good position, setting up an easy birdie.
Robert Lusetich was the round's lone dissenter, suggesting that if Tiger's goal "was to bury ghosts and quickly set a fresh tone for the new year," he "failed." Especially from 100 yards and in.
Although his long game has improved greatly under the tutelage of new coach Sean Foley, it’s noticeable just how uncertain and tentative Woods is from inside 100 yards.
Maybe that’s the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place — and maybe it’ll only come once Woods has real confidence in what he’s doing — but the harsh reality is that it’s hard to score on a course like the North without hitting wedges close to the hole.
Even though Woods missed only three greens — and made no bogeys — the truth is that he had very few realistic chances at birdies.
“I kept leaving himself above the hole,” he later bemoaned.
From reader Don, who watched today's opening round of the Farmer's Insurance Open telecast on Sky Sports with John Hopkins sitting in as one of the announcers:
I don't think the fairways have been narrowed the on the North Course at Torrey Pines, but the rough is way up thanks to our rain/heat weather combo in the last few weeks coupled with the Tour's decision to keep the rough higher on the North to help offset what is an otherwise pushover for the players. Tiger after round one today:
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning Drive, is co-host of The Ringer's ShackHouse is the author of eleven books.
