Woods’ answer to better driving:
"Swinging better”
DUBLIN, Ohio – Tiger Woods has got to quit hitting fairways. Otherwise, he’ll give himself a bad name. Woods was at it again Friday, in the second round of the Memorial Tournament, pretty much bombing away with impunity and finding, as they say, the short grass. Well, that being the case, how to explain a pedestrian, 2-over-par 74?
It was his highest score of the season, his highest since the second round of the 2007 British Open, and also his highest Memorial score since the 76 in the third round in 2003. Not that it really matters, for at a 1-under 143 total – seven off the lead, he’s practically a lock to challenge for his fourth Memorial victory.
The point is, he believes that he’s slowly getting his old game back. Not that there’s been a whole lot wrong with the current game, not with a win and four other top-10 finishes in six starts.
Next question: Well, if Woods was that inaccurate, how to explain all his victories? Simple. The secret to his game is his second shot – so powerful, so creative, so ingenious, so everything that he almost always can get to the green and even be in position for a toothsome crack at a birdie. It’s called hitting greens in regulation, but he’s been a tad off recen
tly. He hit only 13 of the 18 in the first round, and only 11 on Friday.
But back to the academic point: Why the improved driving?
Maybe it’s as simple as an adjustment in equipment. He’s gone from a 9.5-degree driver to a 10-degree, meaning the amount of loft – or back slope from vertical – in the clubface. At the sweetspot, it would amount to about an angel hair, and the increased loft would mean drives that go higher, but somewhat shorter. Woods, easily capable of blasts well beyond 300 yards, has been averaging 292.5 yards, tied for a pedestrian 42nd, about 21 yards behind Bubba Watson, the leader at 313.3. Longer drives often roll through the fairway and into the rough. Shorter drives don’t.
Woods had been hitting the fairway about 57 percent of the time. That’s about like a batting star going 1-for-4 everyday, with three strikeouts.
Woods offered a simpler explanation.
“I’m swinging better,” he said Friday. “I finally feel my body’s coming around now. That I can start doing these things. It’s kind of fun.”
This is the post-op Tiger Woods. There was the anterior cruciate ligament surgery last June, followed by the long rehabilitation, and then the return to the game in Februray, but not quite the return to the old Tiger Woods.
“I can pretty much do anything I want,” Woods said. “T
hey obviously don’t want me playing basketball, so I guess it’s not quite that good yet.”
So Kobe and the boy have nothing to fear for the moment. And they might out-putt him, too. He’s needed 29 putts both days in the Memorial – OK, but hardly dazzling.
“Yeah, no doubt I’m driving it well now,” Woods said. “Missed two fairways. One was by an inch, the other was by three yards. I’m encouraged by that. Just need to hit my irons a little better and make the short ones.”
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