Sherwood Struggle: Tiger Woods Flounders, Opens With 76 - Dog Leg News

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Tom Edrington

Tom Edrington spent the first 10 years of his misguided youth as a sports writer for the Tampa Tribune. His career brought him face to face with many of sports greatest stars -- Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Muhammad Ali, Don Shula, countless Hall of Fame NFL stars, more PGA Tour players than he can count. In 1980 he was honored by the Golf Writers Association of America for writing the best news story that year, his coverage of Jack Nicklaus' U.S. Open victory at Baltusrol. Today, 36 years later, golf is still a great part of his life, thanks to competitive playing days and the wonderful people he has met on this fabulous journey.

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4 Comments

  1. 1

    baxter cepeda

    This is not as bad as it looks.

    Only one thing ruined tigers tournament, and it’s the same thing that has been ruining tournaments for tiger and Phil for decades:
    Unnecessary, overly aggressive driving.

    Throw in some forced draws for Augusta and tiger simply is not giving himself a chance to contend this week.

    These 5 par 5s are still par 4s for Tiger, and basically everyone else.
    The lpga is playing par 5s at 560 this week, while Sherwood has a couple barely over 500.

    There is only one requirement for sherwoods easy par 5s:
    some restraint off the tee; the landing areas are generous at Sherwood but there is often OB on both sides and a whole lot of other awkward trouble, which tiger found often forcing things.

    Those driving woes then lead to forcing and more mistakes.

    Yes working on draws is important for the Masters, but so is working on keeping it play, strategizing well, scoring well.

    Tiger strategy of forcing draws for Masters prep is a tired strategy, which leads to disappointing outcomes, which hurt confidence.

    The most important thing to have going to Augusta is confidence; winning.
    Hard to get great confidence from the backyard of the Great One —Wayne Gretzky; Or From the flowers beds of what’s his name from the reverse mortgage commercials.

    Ironically, tiger started Zozo Japan last year with 3 straight bogeys. His first tee shot went in the pond left. But then tiger reeled off a bunch of birdies and shot 65.

    But again, tiger wasn’t on full blown Masters prep last year, which helped him get his game back on track quicker. He could play the appropriate shots then, which he is simply not allowing himself to do at Sherwood so far.

    Another note is how I was fooled , not knowing yet another great Cali course softened its beautiful, challenging, character filled Poa greens for these soft, flat, big, frankly less interesting surfaces. This helped everyone in the field, especially those less experience putting west coast greens, while completely eliminating tigers advantage.

    So yea, the lesson for me is to remember to check course renovation history before making bold predictions someone will win based on course history. Kokrak had more history on Shadow Creeks greens than tiger has on these at Sherwood. If only we knew these things before the week starts.

    Brings up another point:
    You notice GC is suddenly not airing GC on Monday-Wednesday; wonder what that’s about ?
    Especially now with grumbling, it seems people would be expecting more pre game shows, not less.

    1. 1.1

      Tom Edrington

      Golf Channel is going through great woes, move to Connecticut, cutting half its 800 person workforce; Doing away with http://www.golfchannel.com; You will see big changes Baxter and none for the good….

      1. 1.1.1

        baxter cepeda

        If they just kept permitting reader posts on golf channel.com they would still be going strong.

        But I probably would have never started posting on DL News.

        #notsurprised

        1. 1.1.1.1

          Tom Edrington

          Baxter, we’re more than happy to have you as our “All-Star” poster on Dog Leg News; You bring great insight and always give food for thought…..I see Tiger made a comeback for you on Friday! But with five reachable par 5s, this is a par 67 for guys who have their game in order…

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