Tiger's career - can it be redeemed?

Tiger Woods Withdraws from TPC After Front Nine 42

Tiger once held all the promise in the world…the chosen one to break Jack’s record of 19 Majors. But since the media scandals, and recent injuries, everyone seems to be in agreement that his career is spiraling out of control, and fast.

Tiger is now 35 years old and has 14 Majors. Being that golfers can still be competitive well into their 40s and even 50s, do you think that he will break “the only record that matters to him”?

Why or Why not?

No. He’s lost his mystique. People are coming up now that aren’t afraid of him and openly gun for him (e.g. Rory McElroy wanting to play him in the Ryder Cup). I say he wins one more Masters and that’s it.

Agreed - he doesn’t scare anyone anymore and he has lost all of his mojo. I can see one more Major and that is it.

Honestly I don’t know what to predict. Is he using the injuries as an excuse for poor play? Who knows. If the injuries are true, then it could be easy to mark this up to injuries. But who knows how true or relevant the injuries are.

Vijay Singh, Fred Funk, Kenny Perry and others played the best golf of their career in their 40s. While other top players faded away, like Nick Faldo, Davis Love, Colin Montgomerie and Tom Lehman.

Certainly some of the Tiger Woods mystique is gone. But he didn’t just win off of intimidation. He won because he was the best putter when it mattered of all time.

If I had to predict I’d say he’ll win 2 more majors. Even if Tiger catches Jack in majors won, it’d still be be difficult to say who was better. Nicklaus won 18 majors, but also finished 2nd 19 times. He was that close to 30 or so majors! I believe Tiger has about 5 runner up finishes in the Majors.

Probably cuz he can’t get his canadian “treatments” anymore.

[quote=“Normmm, post:4, topic:25392”]Honestly I don’t know what to predict. Is he using the injuries as an excuse for poor play? Who knows. If the injuries are true, then it could be easy to mark this up to injuries. But who knows how true or relevant the injuries are.

Vijay Singh, Fred Funk, Kenny Perry and others played the best golf of their career in their 40s. While other top players faded away, like Nick Faldo, Davis Love, Colin Montgomerie and Tom Lehman.

Certainly some of the Tiger Woods mystique is gone. But he didn’t just win off of intimidation. He won because he was the best putter when it mattered of all time.

If I had to predict I’d say he’ll win 2 more majors. Even if Tiger catches Jack in majors won, it’d still be be difficult to say who was better. Nicklaus won 18 majors, but also finished 2nd 19 times. He was that close to 30 or so majors! I believe Tiger has about 5 runner up finishes in the Majors.[/quote]

Who would you say had the biggest challenge from the field? Jack or Tiger? That’s a huge part of the debate and most seem to side with Jack.

Tiger who?

[quote=“NLP, post:6, topic:25392”][quote=“Normmm, post:4, topic:25392”]Honestly I don’t know what to predict. Is he using the injuries as an excuse for poor play? Who knows. If the injuries are true, then it could be easy to mark this up to injuries. But who knows how true or relevant the injuries are.

Vijay Singh, Fred Funk, Kenny Perry and others played the best golf of their career in their 40s. While other top players faded away, like Nick Faldo, Davis Love, Colin Montgomerie and Tom Lehman.

Certainly some of the Tiger Woods mystique is gone. But he didn’t just win off of intimidation. He won because he was the best putter when it mattered of all time.

If I had to predict I’d say he’ll win 2 more majors. Even if Tiger catches Jack in majors won, it’d still be be difficult to say who was better. Nicklaus won 18 majors, but also finished 2nd 19 times. He was that close to 30 or so majors! I believe Tiger has about 5 runner up finishes in the Majors.[/quote]

Who would you say had the biggest challenge from the field? Jack or Tiger? That’s a huge part of the debate and most seem to side with Jack.[/quote]

That’s a tough call too. I’d say Nicklaus had the better top tier players. He had 3 or 4 of the top 15 players of all time to compete against during his prime. Palmer, Player, Trevino and Watson. Tiger’s had maybe 3 in Singh, Els and Mickelson. But I don’t think you can even put any of those 3 ahead of the 4 for Nicklaus.

However, the fields are much deeper for Tiger than they were for Nicklaus. A lot of the Americans wouldn’t travel to the British Open in Nicklaus’ time. Conversely the best Europeans didn’t travel to the States as much as they do today.

According to Nicklaus in his autobiography, there were about 10 guys who could beat Bobby Jones in the 1930s. In his prime(1970s) he guessed there were about 30 guys who could beat him. In Tiger’s prime, Nicklaus estimates there are about 90 guys who could beat him.

Tiger Woods Still Relevant

Rick Reilly points out that Tiger is still ahead of Jack’s pace for the next 2 seasons.

Bubba was right, Tiger needs to quit monkeying with his swing and just go play golf. If the knee is bad and arthritis creeps in, he could be down for the count. He could still play tourneys but it would kill his practice time.

Somebody said Nicklaus had better greats but the fields weren’t as deep- I agree with that.

The biggest issue is that karma is being the bitch we all know it to be. Putts that he used to make are lipping out.

I can’t see him winning another major unless it’s Augusta or a friendly British course- he’s just too wild off the tee. Also, the young players now are athletic and hit it farther than him by a long way, that’s another reason he’s not initimidating anyone any more.

clt thinks ty tryon will break the major record.

[quote=“hootie, post:10, topic:25392”]Bubba was right, Tiger needs to quit monkeying with his swing and just go play golf. If the knee is bad and arthritis creeps in, he could be down for the count. He could still play tourneys but it would kill his practice time.

Somebody said Nicklaus had better greats but the fields weren’t as deep- I agree with that.

The biggest issue is that karma is being the b**** we all know it to be. Putts that he used to make are lipping out.

I can’t see him winning another major unless it’s Augusta or a friendly British course- he’s just too wild off the tee. Also, the young players now are athletic and hit it farther than him by a long way, that’s another reason he’s not initimidating anyone any more.[/quote]

There’s no doubt that Tiger has tinkered with his swing over the years. But from what I understand the change in coaches also had other influences, aside from swing changes. Butch Harmon was becoming a “star” in his own right. 2 super egos were involved and neither wanted to give in. Tiger felt Butch was becoming known as the best teacher in the world because he was Tiger’s coach. Butch felt Tiger became the best player in the world because he was Butch’s student. I think Tiger won that battle by remaining the #1 player in the world without Butch.

Then it seems Hank Haney did not want to get caught up in all of the drama surrounding Tiger when all of the stories/rumors started to fly, so he resigned. So Tiger had to search for a new coach. It remains to be seen if Tiger can get back to the top with a new coach again.

Perhaps more influential in Tiger’s decline, than him changing coaches, was the loss of his father.