It ended, as rounds marked by ineptitude and futility tend to do, with a tired-looking three-putt. And it added up to 76, six over par for the 7,497-yard course. That basic arithmetic meant Tiger Woods – by a margin of 11 shots – would play no part in the second half of the 115th US Open. Not only that, his aggregate of 156 represented his highest 36-hole score at a major championship.
There was a time when such statistics would be shocking to a public long accustomed to Woods dominating the game at the highest level. No more though. Seemingly endless swing changes under the supervision of a succession of coaches, a private life that long ago imploded in a succession of lurid headlines and a significant deterioration in his once peerless short game have combined to create the equivalent of a particularly gruesome car crash. No one really wants to watch the bloody aftermath of the shuddering impact between Woods and the real world, but turning one’s eyes away is all but impossible.
The explanations for this extraordinary situation are many. Just about everyone has an opinion. But it is difficult to avoid the notion that this inexorable decline is largely self-induced. Unable to leave any aspect of his once finely tuned action alone, Woods is playing “golf swing” rather than golf. The instinctive feel and imagination that were such distinctive features of his best game are gone, his head now filled with science rather than art.
There have even been worse displays than the one he just put on in a championship, lest we forget, he won by 15 shots 15 years ago. At the Waste Management Phoenix Open in January Woods was a pathetic sight, incapable of hitting even the most straightforward chip without visibly flinching. Unable to control his fast‑twitch muscles, his short shots were a mixture of what Peter Dobereiner called “sickening knee-high fizzers” and duffs that sent the ball far past the intended target or left it a few feet from its original position.
Still, this past week in Washington State there was none of that nonsense. Instead, the festering sore eating away at Woods’s already damaged psyche shifted to the longest club in his bag. Driving has never been the strength of his game, but his current lack of proficiency from the tee is a parody of his former self. He has become a slicer.
Fighting the high-handicap ball flight he now routinely replicates, Woods has taken to aiming further and further left of ever-more elusive fairways. As a result, his drives have to curve more and more from left to right if they are to finish on short grass. The more he aims left, the further right the ball is likely to go. Such a scenario – as any halfway decent instructor would tell you – is 180 degrees removed from a proper cure for slicing. It is hard to believe Woods does not know this.
Even a vaguely cogent explanation of his thinking is unlikely to be forthcoming from the notoriously reticent Woods. Instead, we are treated to a well-rehearsed litany of superficial and unrevealing cliches: “It’s part of the process”; “All I need is more reps [practice]”; “It is what it is”; “I just have to work through this.” None of which gets to the heart of whatever ails the Woods game.
As ever, appearances speak louder than words. During his most recent visits to the PGA Tour, Woods has seemed to be less engaged by the game that has been his life. Many have wondered openly if he wants to play any more, his confidence so low – and ego so punctured – after such a prolonged period of failure. Not since the 2008 US Open has he won one of the four most important events.
Understandably, Woods’s on-course body language screams “get me out of here” far more than “I can do this”. Suggestions he continues to compete only to fulfil lucrative contractual obligations are voiced more loudly after every wild drive and every missed cut. The rapidly approaching bitter end may well be the day the last endorsement dies.
