Woods starts '12 hoping more things change, more they're back to same
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| Caveats and disclaimers can't take away Tiger Woods' trophy from the Chevron World Challenge. (US Presswire) |
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Of course, the queries could have lasted for hours, and given his economical use of words in nearly all of his responses, Twitter was the perfect medium.
A few hours before he hopped on TWA -- Tiger Woods airlines -- and headed overseas to make his 2012 debut in Abu Dhabi, former world No. 1 Tiger Woods elected to answer some questions from his million-plus followers in 140-character bursts.
Obviously, the tight-lipped 36-year-old will never make the Hall of Fame based on the way he plays a game of 20 Questions, but he gave it a shot anyway, and fielded a question from Paul Azinger, a former major champion himself.
Asked Azinger: "Byron Nelson said, 'They're two kinds of players -- those who need to know a little and those who need to know it all.' Which are you? Why?"
Though we already know the answer, Woods rifled off a response: "The latter -- how are [you] going to fix something if you don't know what's wrong?"
No prominent player has busted out the swing oil and torque wrenches more often than Woods, who, with the aroma of his scandal and injuries finally dissipating, expects to both play 20-odd events in 2012 and reestablish some semblance of his former self in the process.
As Woods reengages his chase of Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan in the record books -- names we've not cited randomly, mind you -- he's attempting a first of another sort. Swing coach Peter Kostis mentions all those names, and several others, when noting that Woods, now entering his second full season working with instructor Sean Foley, has already claimed an entirely different kind of Grand Slam.
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"Up until Tiger, every single superstar player we've had has done it his own way," said Kostis, who coaches a handful of tour players and serves as a CBS network analyst. "They didn't really copy anybody, they did what they could do with what they had and spawned a generation of copycats themselves.
"Tiger is the first superstar who isn't doing that. He's trying to win majors with his third different swing. Or his fourth, depending on how you are keeping score."
It's the latter, all right: Two makeovers with Butch Harmon, a comprehensive overhaul under Hank Haney and another complete teardown with Foley, who started on the job in late 2010. In each instance, there has been a notable disconnect before Woods consistently found his way back to the winner's circle, though he has never before gone two full seasons without an official victory, a skein that carries over into this year. Clearly, change has become his only constant, and that's not a crack about his busy nocturnal proclivities. As Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee put it, "He is addicted to change."
There's no rehab clinic or psychologist's couch for this one, either.
As Woods began play Thursday at the European Tour event in Abu Dhabi, he offered every assurance that he is fitter than he has been in a decade and that his game under Foley has finally turned the corner, and he communicated those notions with a familiar level of cocky defiance, circa 2000-10.
For the Woods fan club, whose membership has surely dropped over the past two-plus years, that has been received as crackling good news. Yet while Woods beat a field of 17 players last month at the unofficial Chevron World Challenge, and played solidly in finishing T3 against at the Australian Open, it has never been harder to predict where he'll go from here. But history suggests that "up" is a prudent bet.
"Part of the explanation of why it takes so long [to reassert himself] is that he's not just doing minor work on his swing, he's completely revamping his DNA," Kostis said. "It takes time for that to become second nature.
"The movements look significantly better. I always tell my players, under pressure, a player reverts to instinct. If a swing is not instinctive, they revert to the old one."
Not that Woods was exactly spitting the bit before his latest change. Woods left Harmon in mid-2002 after amassing eight major championships, ultimately hired Haney to revamp his swing, and won a single event in 2004. But the light went on the following year and Woods thereafter mustered 57 top-10 finishes in 78 events, winning 31 times. Six were Grand Slam titles. Haney quit in the spring of 2010.
The Changeling believes in his core that a similar spurt is possible, or he would not have torn up his swing yet again under Foley. He hasn't won a major since mid-2008 and stands four Slam titles behind Nicklaus, so the meter is running. Nicklaus won four of his majors at age 38 or older, while 25 of the past 100 Grand Slam events have been won by players Woods' age or older, including three of recent vintage by Padraig Harrington.
"I'm looking forward to this year," Woods said Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates, where he received a $1.5 million appearance fee. "That's something that I have to say, because I was able to prepare and get fit enough to prepare last year, and towards the end of the year, I demonstrated to myself what I can do with implementing what [Foley] wants me to do in the golf swing."
How much weight should be assigned to his Oz and Chevron performances is animatedly open to question. The respective fields were small, or comparatively thin, and his best finish in a PGA Tour event going back 28 months is a pair of T4s at the Masters.
Yet it was the circumstances of the victory last month that prompted shivers from his player peers. Faced with gotta-have birdie putts on the final two holes to beat veteran Zach Johnson, Woods converted both even though his putting stroke has been mostly MIA for two years. As the winning putt on the 72nd hole fell, Johnson stood nearby with a look of something akin to resignation on his face.
"I don't think you should overreact, I don't think you should underreact," Johnson said of the impact of the short-field win by Woods. "When it comes down to it, it is only 18 guys, however, he did execute when he needed to execute.
"He did hit quality shots when he needed to hit quality shots. He did make putts when he needed to make putts. But that is the Tiger we're all accustomed to seeing."
His new caddie, Joe LaCava, noticed in Australia two months ago that Woods finally had gained control of the compass, was able to steer shots both ways on command, and that vestiges of an old aura had somewhat returned. Though it was mostly a matter of fortuitous timing on his part, Woods scored what proved to be the clinching point at the Presidents Cup.
"At the Presidents Cup, he was trying to will himself to win when he was down a couple matches late in the day," La Cava recalled. "He went out there on Sunday, basically knowing he was going to defeat Aaron Baddeley, even though Baddeley was playing well. I don't think that match was ever in jeopardy."
That attitude vaguely rings a bell.
Yet we've been thought fits and spurts before. Heading into 2011, Woods had just played well and lost the Chevron event in a playoff, seemingly signaling that better days were ahead, then spent several weeks with Foley in the offseason honing the new swing. Yet when '11 began, he didn't contend for months, and even then, rarely. He tanked at his Torrey Pines opener, reinjured his knee and had the worst year of his career, finishing outside the top 125 on the money list.
If he's as healthy and whole as he claims, we'll likely know by Sunday. Since 1997, Woods has won six of 15 starts in his stroke-play opener and finished in the top 10 every time, with the exception of last year, when he skidded to T44.
To use one of his favorite swing terms, it's no longer just about his professional "trajectory" either. As ever with Woods, the litany of singed feelings he has created over the years continues to cause at least as much noise in his head as his golf game. After enduring a nasty public divorce from caddie Steve Williams last year, Woods learned this month that Haney had written a book about their tenure together, set to be released shortly before the Masters, Woods' favorite event.
Back in the day, bad news in the Woods camp came along as often as a triple bogey. Now, with his personal and professional lives still in comparative disarray, it indeed comes along as often as a ... triple bogey.
Woods chafed this week before his opener in the UAE, eventually deflecting perfectly legitimate questions about the Haney tome and the soap-opera patina his once closely guarded life has taken on.
"Certainly it's something I have to deal with," Woods said evenly. "I get asked at press conferences what these guys have done, and that's just part of it.
"Am I disappointed? Yes. Frustrated? Certainly, because I have to answer the questions. It's been awhile since I haven't had to answer those questions. I guess I'll have to continue doing it."
That's a lead-pipe certainty. Woods did offer an honest response about whether he's having trouble building interpersonal trust as a consequence -- though his ex-wife is surely laughing at the irony of Woods beefing publicly about feeling betrayed.
"One might say that," Woods said Tuesday.
At this point, trusting his swing -- in whatever transitional or functional state -- is more paramount to shifting the hot spotlight of celebrity back to green-grass issues. Otherwise, Woods, who slipped outside the world top 50 last year and now stands at No. 25, has a much lesser chance to reclaim the throne he so publically and painfully abdicated.
Which isn't to say he has zero chance. Johnson, over his four-hour walk with Woods in the final round at the Chevron last month, felt a sea change of sorts. Or, at minimum, a rising tide.
"What I noticed is that his rhythm, his walk, his routines, his preparation, certainly didn't waiver, for the most part, from the first tee back to the 18th green," said Johnson, a former Masters champion. "You can only hold him back so long.
"Frankly, as a fan of the game and as a PGA Tour member, I don't know if this means he's coming back. But I certainly think it's momentum in the right direction. I hope that's the case."
