SI's Gary Van Sickle, who has often questioned Tiger's swing changes,
says Tiger has his "mojo back" because he has regained his distance advantage.
The worse news, at least for his
competition, is that he's swinging his driver the best of his career,
in his own opinion. And he's hitting it longer than a Pauley Shore
movie. At Firestone last week, the tour's ShotLink stats show that
Woods blasted 41 of 54 tee shots more than 300 yards. Granted, almost
half of the driving holes are downhill -- the steep 16th, for instance,
yielded a dizzying batch of 400-yard plus drives. Also, Woods didn't
use driver on probably nine of the holes. He averaged 317.2 yards off
the tee on all of the holes. Take those non-driver tee shots out of the
equation and you've got a scary number -- I don't have a calculator
handy but trust me, it's huge. He smashed 24 drives in excess of 330,
14 more than 350 and seven beyond 370.
Meanwhile Ron Sirak
joins the chorus
saying that Tiger's return to Orlando on PGA Sunday was a monumental
blunder and rather un-Tiger-like. Jim Nantz and Lanny Wadkins also
discussed the issue during Sunday's World Championship telecast, with
Nantz summing it up as "bizarre."
