Tiger's Myelin Pattern Issues Aside, It Was A Great Week

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A week ago if you'd told me we'd be talking about a Tiger Woods who played in the third to last group, got around around Augusta National in 73 despite hitting two fairways and having a wicked drop-kick in his arsenal, I would have bet anything you offered.

But here we are a week later and we saw joviality, love for his kids, love for the fans, even fun with the media. We saw some huge drives (the "pop" was back declared Tiger) and the ability to recover as if Isleworth, Scottsdale and Torrey Pines never happened.

Besides talking about popping his joint back into place after a violent collision with a hole (and some clay, yes I went out there and inspected it), Woods had this to say about his release pattern issues:

Q.  What does this do for your confidence going forward?  Clearly you were bothered by the state of your game before.

TIGER WOODS:  Yeah, as said back then I was caught between two different release patterns.  They're completely polar opposites.  So I needed to do a lot of work and engrain the pattern.  The Myelin pattern, where it takes 10,000 reps but it's actually 10,000 good reps.  You might hit 50,000 to get 10,000.

So it's going to take some time.  So I was pleased with the way I was able to hit the ball this week.  I've got my pop back.  And then on top that have I got my short game back, which was nice.

Myelination pattern returns the most possibilities on Google. Though the search return for Myelin pattern definitely sounds short game related:

A pattern of alternating light and dark columns was observed in wet, unstained sections of macaque striate cortex after monocular enucleation. The columns were clearest in layer IV, but could be detected through the full thickness of the cortex. Subsequent processing for cytochrome oxidase (CO) showed that the light columns in wet sections viewed under darkfield illumination matched the ocular dominance columns serving the enucleated eye. These columns labeled preferentially with an antibody to myelin basic protein, suggesting that greater myelin content accounted for their brighter appearance.

Well now that we got that squared away, what did his caddie and swing consultant think?

Bob Harig reports for ESPN.com:

"We'll just always try to get better," Como said in brief comments afterward. "Always try to get better."

Said caddie Joe LaCava: "He didn't have his best stuff today. He hit only two fairways. What do you expect? But I'm happy with 72 holes. Happy with making the cut. It's progress."

Jay Coffin for GolfChannel.com:

Woods was paired with Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy on the weekend and ultimately tied for 17th place at 5 under par, 13 shots behind Jordan Spieth.

“I’m pretty proud of what of what I’ve done,” Woods said. “To make my short game my strength again was pretty sweet. That’s something that I have worked my butt off to get to that point.”
When last we saw Woods before this week – two months ago in California – he couldn’t produce the easiest of shots.