Tiger Blogs 1500 Words: Kids Courses, Hero Assessment & Golf With President-Elect Trump

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Tiger Woods took to his TigerWoods.com blog to confirm he's playing in Dubai (four events in five weeks!?) and to cover a bit of everything. He did so in uncharacteristically frank style, acknowledging his fatigue issues in his first start back and his hearbreak over Derek Carr's injury.

But more exciting than anything is his advocacy for short kids courses, something no great player in the history of the sport has ever done (Bobby Jones had mixed feelings about "kindergarten" courses).

Woods, who has now done two par-3/short courses in his short design career, writes:

I am also excited about the opening of The Oasis Short Course, our new 12-hole par-3 design at Diamante Cabo San Lucas. With this design, I'm trying to go back to my roots. I grew up playing Heartwell, a par-3 course in Long Beach, California. That's how I got introduced to golf.

Golf now is almost impossible to play in less than five hours, so why don't we open things up? We can play faster and have more fun in an entertaining environment -- like a short course -- where everyone can participate, practice and learn the game, and kids can play without being overwhelmed by a big golf course.

Keep preaching!

Interesting that he opened up about the first tee shot at the Hero, which to me indicates just how much pressure he was feeling.

That first tee shot was a little weird to me because it was left to right, and the wind was howling off the left. I had just seen Matt Kuchar slice the ball into the desert on the right, and he never misses a fairway. I decided to go for a low, pull-cut up the left side and hit a straight money ball right between the bunkers.

From there, I had a pitching wedge from 150. I played for a flyer and it came out perfectly. From then on, I was fine. I was back at a tournament again, no problem, no issues. At the second hole, I stuffed it in there and felt comfortable the rest of the way.

On playing with President-elect Trump, Woods writes:

Our discussion topics were wide-ranging; it was fun. We both enjoyed the bantering, bickering and needling. I also shared my vision for golf and what I'm trying to do.

Oops...and The Donald doesn't get too excited about growing the game efforts, so hopefully we moved on from that quickly!

We didn't have a match and played for fun. I was testing drivers and fairway woods, and changed some settings. I think he enjoyed seeing the difference in shots when you experiment.

Let's hope this wasn't the President's first exposure to adjustable drivers.