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The only thing more surprising than Tiger Woods winning the 2019 Masters is that a 15-time major winner who won a major just 18 months ago is so unlikely to claim again that he isn’t even in the 14 top favorites in the field. Perhaps even more damning is that two golfers who were still amateurs (Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff) last April when Woods won at Augusta National now have a better chance of winning the 2020 event as he attempts a new offer.
Such is life on Woods’ late career roller coaster.
The heights are high: win the Masters, ignite the Zozo championship, become captain and fight your way to a victory in the President’s Cup. The lows aren’t as low as those in the middle of the road, which is no place for an 82-time PGA Tour winner.
And yet, this is where we are with Woods.
The juxtaposition is weird. Tiger Woods will not win the Masters 2020, and yet he will be one of the few focal points both because he is Tiger Woods and because he has built one of the great sporting careers on the basis of statements. such as “Tiger Woods is not going to win the 2020 Masters.”
The data is, however, indisputable. Woods plays like the 50th or 60th best player in the world, which is always a good one but not someone you would deploy as a Masters favorite or anywhere nearby. Since the PGA Tour restarted in June, his best result is a T37 in the PGA Championship. His game is a leaky dam. He plugs a single hole to see two more burst.
Still, we’ve seen Woods compete (even pretend!) At Augusta National with less than the game he’s bringing to the Masters this time around. Do you remember 2015? He was a non-factor as Jordan Spieth sailed, but Woods still finished T17 after taking several months off to mend his chippings after a few dastardly blade chocks earlier this year. His game is now better than it was then.
What makes Woods dangerous at Augusta National is that he’s both smarter and wiser than everyone else on the pitch. Smart enough to know where every failure is on the course, and wise enough to know when to be patient and disciplined and when to step on the pedal. This one-two combination alone is worth one stroke per day. But there are many traits to be invented.
In just six rounds so far this year, Woods is earned negative hits in every statistical category.
There is no conspiracy theory to explain his play. His back, legs and neck look pretty good, and he’s been mentally healthy. What comes closest to a headline when it comes to Woods over the past few months is that he changed his putter grip at one point. Great news. The simplest explanation for its poor performance is that it’s just who Tiger is now.
The puzzling part of Woods’ mediocrity in 2020 is actually that he do not injured. When he has been in good health during his career, Tiger has always been the elite, one of the best of all time. Even in the midst of all the injuries – when he was healthy he was awesome. This was not the case for the second half of 2020. Although he retired for a few months at the start of the year, his battered body has remained stable since then, but his game just has not been. the.
We always thought it would be a negative act that would break Tiger forever. Maybe he shoots 90 at a US Open, and that’s a movie. This would be the inflection point between currently existing as a legend and previously being one. Hopefully, it’s not an injury that gets us to this point.
What if, instead of looking for the negative moment that signifies the end, we forget the happiest moment of his career as the one that was the real ending?
What if her victory at the 2019 Masters was the real swan song – at least in the big leagues – for the biggest spike ever? It would be a quirk as success always spawned more success for Woods, but it would also be fitting.
Isn’t it plausible that climbing the mountain one last time was what allowed him to rest whatever he wanted to rest? Tiger hasn’t been the same in the majors since that Masters win with three missed cups and no top 20 in five appearances.
Last year was a legendary Masters. Films (plural) will be made on this subject. Sunday was dreamlike. And while a lot of things went wrong for Woods in the second half of his career, here’s something that happened: His 15th major and his fifth green jacket have arrived in a pre-pandemic world that may well have him. celebrate. Can you imagine if he had won it in 2020 without any clients to bathe the old Fruitlands Nursery with the chants of the one whose name they chanted two decades before when he won his first? It would still have been nice, but it wouldn’t have meant so much.
No one knows how Tiger is going to perform in the coming week, month or year. Not even Tiger. Whether he wins 10 other majors or never makes another cut, one thing remains.
The Masters 2020 – as bizarre and unconventional as it is – is a reminder that barely a season ago this all-time great sportsman housed inside what could be considered a shell of his former self unleashed an unthinkable week in Augusta. National.
It was one thing for the mighty 21-year-old to destroy Augusta, but it was much easier to relate when the 43-year-old picked up his kids and screamed into that same sky and that same sun in utter and utter disbelief. . I’m glad he (and we) got to experience this. This year, with no guests present and less buzz about the property, someone other than Woods will be howling in the sky, but it won’t be the same as 19 months ago.
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