Tiger's game gets a serious reality check at Quail Hollow
By Gary Van Sickle, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated
Published: April 30, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Before the Masters Tournament began, Tiger Woods talked about changing his behavior on the golf course. This is definitely not what he had in mind.

Woods committed early to the Quail Hollow Championship and he left, early, too. A stunning 79 in Friday's second round meant he missed the cut, and missed it badly. That's a rare event for Woods, who had missed only five cuts in 240 tournaments. This is No. 6.

If Woods was hoping that playing in PGA Tour events again would speed the process of his life getting back to something resembling normalcy, his 74-79 performance and tie for 141st at Quail Hollow didn't help. All it did was reinforce the view that his game is in shocking tatters.

You could say the back nine didn't agree with him — his score for two rounds there was 82, 10 over par, versus the 71 he shot on the front nine. But that doesn't reflect the truth, which is that he was an equal-opportunity bogeymaker.

In many ways, Woods picked up where he left off in Augusta. If you remember his worst shots from the Masters weekend, well, that's pretty much how he played here. One key difference was that Quail Hollow has rough, unlike Augusta, and thick stands of trees, and Woods couldn't get away with badly errant drives like he did when he began the final round of the Masters by yanking his opening tee shot past the treeline and into the ninth fairway. At Quail Hollow, he was constantly on safari in the trees.

Quail Hollow provided Tiger with a serious reality check on the state of his game — both the technique of his swing and his mental game. Thursday, he struggled with his swing and scrambled magnificently from the trees and bunkers to salvage a 74 that included two shots into the water. It could've been much worse. He fought hard for every par.

Friday was more troubling. His play on the final nine — three straight bogeys, back-to-back double bogeys — was indicative of bigger problems. Missing five-foot putts, stubbing a bunker shot, playing a chip shot that doesn't stay on the green, and three-jacking from four feet weren't simple errors of technique, they stemmed from a lack of concentration.

And the last part of that sentence is notable because that's one thing we've never written about Tiger before. He never gives up, never gives in, never gives out and never gives anything away. Until now.

That three-putt at the par-5 15th, when he tried to power in a four-footer for par and missed, then hastily pounded the comeback putt and watched it horseshoe around the cup and come out? He looked like a golfer who suddenly didn't care — he had a similar moment on the back nine Sunday at Augusta — or worse, a golfer who wanted to punish himself. Don't laugh — every golfer has been there, done that.

Woods has no intention of telling us what's going on. "It is what it is," Woods said in a brief meeting with reporters after the 79. OK, but what is it?

Asked what he was going to do, Tiger said he was going to practice a little (quick, alert the media!) and maybe turn on the television this weekend "to watch the real players and see how it's done." It was a weak attempt at humor but it was successful in its intent — avoiding the question of, What's Wrong With Tiger?

Maybe it's too early for that. What's wrong with Tiger may simply be five months off. But there are other possibilities. "I'm hitting the ball actually pretty decent, and I made three pretty bad mistakes around the greens that cost me," Woods said.

He's in denial about his ballstriking. He hit only 6 of 28 fairways in two rounds, the lowest total of his career, and has never looked more lost on a golf course.

Tiger tanked Friday, coincidentally, after a reported heckling incident at the tenth hole where one spectator shouted a setup line and another responded with the clichι punchline, "That's what she said." One silly comment like that couldn't possibly get in the head of the toughest mental competitor golf has seen since Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, could it? Then again, it did come a day after the National Enquirer (definitely not Tiger's favorite tabloid rag) printed a story that alleged that Woods admitted to his wife, Elin, that he had slept with 120 women, but that she was even more angry because he didn't list the alleged No. 121, an affair with a 21-year-old neighbor, and was headed straight for divorce court.

It doesn't matter if the story is true or not, just the publication of it would be a distraction, another ounce of humiliation for a man who has already been buried alive in it.

One thing is sure, Tiger is different since his return. The fight had gone out of him Friday afternoon. It may have begun to leave him when he joked after Thursday's opening round that he wasn't even going to the range to practice to figure out what was wrong with his swing — "To hell with it," he said, drawing laughs.

At least he could publicly laugh about it. He offered some lame excuses for his obvious lack of effort on a few shots late in the round. "At that point, I was just trying to stay out of Angel's way," he said of Cabrera, who finished a shot off the lead held by Billy Mayfair. "He's leading the golf tournament and that's kind of what you're supposed to do. I was pretty calm because there's nothing you can do. I had to eagle out, but that's not going to happen."

He said his short game was terrible Friday. Funny, it was fantastic a day earlier. He didn't address why his short game was suddenly so terrible.

The questions aren't going away. Tiger struggled mightily with his swing but there was no sign of swing coach Hank Haney, leading to speculation — perhaps idle, perhaps not — about their future as a team. At times, Woods seems to favor his surgically repaired knee and carefully mask an occasional limp. Is that a factor in his play?

Has the scope of the scandal, which even had Woods complaining about helicopters and camped-out paparazzi in his life now, affected his legendary concentration, mental toughness and self-belief on the golf course? He seemed invincible once upon a time. He was invincible once upon a time. Not now.

Then there's his putting. Tiger is only 34 but in a lot of ways, he's an old 34. He's been playing elite-level competitive golf since he was a young teen and in recent years, his erratic long game has put crushing pressure on his putter. He was considered by many to be the best putter in the game for most of the previous decade. Has that changed?

We don't know. No one even dares ask the big question or even think it: Is Tiger done?

That seems impossible. After all, the man was in a rehab program six weeks ago. Perhaps due to his marital circumstances, he rushed his return to golf. Maybe he just needs some reps, as he likes to call his practice time. Maybe all he needs is time. His wife, his kids, his family is all up in the air and no one would be human if they weren't unsettled about that.

Tiger isn't Superman. We knew that already. But the really scary thing about the last two days at Quail Hollow was, he didn't look like Tiger Woods, either.

This was Woods' first time playing at a regular PGA Tour event with public ticket sales, and the crowd was gracious as ever with a few exceptions. Two fans, including a woman, held thumbs-down as Woods walked off the 15th green. Police also escorted away a fan who apparently heckled Woods as he left the 17th green. A friend of the fan, who declined to give his name, said the fan only said, "No red shirt for you on Sunday."

But you could tell when he was leaving he was in pain."

The large gallery following Woods dispersed soon after he did. Bohn played the final 11 holes alone -- without all the FBI agents dressed in plain clothes, sheriff's officers and extra volunteers who followed Woods around the Stadium Course all week.