Is Tiger still the best golfer in the world?

[silverbear]

Silverbear, it probably is just wishful thinking on my part.....but I think his physical shape, age and experience from past accomplishments offer a pretty firm foundation for him to get back to #1.
Will he do it? Only time will tell, but he is one of the great ones of all time, and they've all hit slumps. He's not too old to get it back, IMHO.

First, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not Tiger bashing here, or at least that's not my intent... I admit that I got good and sick of the media shoving Tiger down my throat in his glory days, but that wasn't his fault, it was the media... and now that people are dumping on him (albeit justifiably), I would kinda like him to win a tournament or two, to put a stop to all THAT media crap...

He's obviously young enough to get his game back, but what I'm telling you is that this old golf pro has seen players suddenly lose their games, especially when they started struggling with the putter... a classic example of that would be Tom Watson, who was never the same again when he got the yips...

When you're young, it's easy to be aggressive when you're standing over a ten footer... you don't worry about running it 3 feet past the hole, if only because you're confident that you can make the 3 footer coming back... but when you get to struggling with the short game, it infects all of your game... you get to the point where you feel like in order to make birdie, you have to knock every approach shot gimme stiff, and of course nobody does that...

And suddenly, those short to mid range putts that you thought were easy when you were 25 start looking tough to you... it is my belief that age is part of the problem, that as you get older you have seen more bad things happen, and that seeps into your mindset, much as you might try to avoid it...

Tiger was the greatest player in the world for a while there, but the truth is, it's not because he had a great swing... his swing really isn't that good, and as I've said before, it's what you'd call high maintenance... there are a lot of extraneous moving parts to his swing, any one of which can run off the tracks at any time... but at his best, it didn't really matter if he was spraying tee shots halfway off the world, he had the ability to turn chicken crap into chicken salad, an ability that was based on his ability to drain one tough putt after another...

And I just have my doubts that he'll ever be able to get that back again...

 

[silverbear]

Not right now. No way. Not even close.

Right now they would be saying Kaymer. The guy has dominated since last August like Tiger used to dominate.

I think we start to see flashes of Tiger driving the ball like he used to off the tee. It's tough to trust those things when you first learn them. Saw some practice footage of him on the range, best his swing has looked in 7 years.

Yeah, I saw him hitting some short irons on the practice range on ESPN earlier today, and it looked like he's firmed his swing up some...

This is good...

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Yeah, I saw him hitting some short irons on the practice range on ESPN earlier today, and it looked like he's firmed his swing up some...

This is good...

You know, when Jack won his last Masters, nobody thought he could still win. He was pretty much counted out and he showed up on the back 9 to clean everybodies clock. Could happen again.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

And suddenly, those short to mid range putts that you thought were easy when you were 25 start looking tough to you... it is my belief that age is part of the problem, that as you get older you have seen more bad things happen, and that seeps into your mindset, much as you might try to avoid it...

That's what Hogan said. Play a course the first time and you only see fairways and greens because that's your target. Play it more and more, and you start seeing the bunkers and rough and water where your bad shots have gone over the years.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Yeah, I saw him hitting some short irons on the practice range on ESPN earlier today, and it looked like he's firmed his swing up some...

This is good...

Friend of mine, who is at Augusta right now, said he watched Tiger hit balls yesterday on the range...best he's looked in years and a complete 180* turnaround from when he watched him hit balls at Doral a few weeks ago. Obviously, bringing it to the course is a different thing...but, we could be seeing something today.




YR

 

[zrinkill]

He needs more strippers and prostitutes to get his game back.